


Even a Stopped Clock

by osheamobile



Series: The Clocktower is Broken but the Gears Still Turn [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), CW: Yang's Puns, Canon-Typical Violence, For Want of a Nail, Gen, Grimm are monsters and thus are monstrous, found family fluff, sometimes a girl just has to punch a werewolf's head clean off, sometimes a girl just has to punch toxic masculinity's head clean off
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 134,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osheamobile/pseuds/osheamobile
Summary: For Want of a Nail, though bridging into further AU territory.One decision could chart the course of an entire war. It just depends on whether it's bad luck for you, or bad luck for your enemies. It could, of course, just be both.The Arbiter remains dormant.





	1. Red Alert

It was, Qrow later mused, a fittingly bleary day in the countryside of Vale, southeast of the capital city. Darker skies than he expected from the forecast on that morning’s news - overcast, but calm - and there was clearly a storm passing over the mountains to the east, but the wind was coming in from the ocean, a cool autumn breeze, and the rain was being pushed the other direction.

Which was why the ominous crack of thunder jolted him out of his nap. His chair, already tilted precariously on its rear legs, gave into its casual flirtation with gravity, and he was pitched backward, rolling onto the wooden floor of the tavern.

Before he could take a second to regain his bearings, a bright flash of light seared itself into his retinas. He righted himself awkwardly, one hand fumbling for his blade while the other was held over his eyes, blinking away the sudden spots in his vision.

Tai and Summer were always the academics of the team, but Qrow was _pretty sure_ that thunder was supposed to come _after_ the lightning.

Something was wrong.

In a burst of crimson, he exploded out of the tavern, leaving in his wake a broken chair, an empty glass of whiskey, and a pre-loaded lien chit, still spinning in place on the table where he tossed it.

He booked it along the road out of town, headed directly towards the sudden funnel cloud in the sky, that was even now flashing with discharges of dark golden energy.

He felt a knot growing at the pit of his stomach. He recognized the color of those flashes. He knew who was in the center of that tempest. Something was _wrong_.

He was probably going to be blamed for it, too. Story of his godsdamned life.

Qrow stilled his Aura, preparing to put on a burst of speed that would put Summer to shame, had she been around to see it. He could hear her now: _Shame you don’t explode in a burst of feathers, because that would be hilarious._

He shoved the intrusive thoughts into the corner of his brain. They were not important right now. They were a distraction, and distractions get people killed.

He focused on riding the wind, on getting to the heart of the storm as fast as possible.

And _flew_.

 

* * *

 

The scene was chaos. Qrow nearly fell out of the sky when he saw how badly the three assassins had beaten the woman he had, despite all evidence in confirmation, hoped would not be there.

And assassins they clearly were. It wasn’t a haphazard ambush by bandits, he knew Amber could handle the average threat. The information Oz had given Qrow on the woman before him wasn’t the most comprehensive file, and while it was skimpy on her combat aptitude, he still knew roughly what her capabilities were supposed to be.

Nothing short of a fully-trained Huntsman strike team should have been able to keep her so flat-footed. This was coordinated. This was _planned_.

Amber was limping when he touched ground. Her twin-crystal staff was poised to deal a decisive blow to one of her attackers. But she didn’t see what was behind her.

The woman in red, bow drawn. One arrow to the back.

He was too far away. Harbinger was in his hand, drawn without even thinking about it, but completely useless at this range. It was a twice-damned albatross around his neck, for all the good it would do him.

The lackeys had Amber on her knees now, as she strained to get away from the woman in red. There was something in the assassin’s hand, pointed at Amber’s face in what was clearly an execution position.

Should he risk it? Would it even make a difference? It wasn’t clear what the assassins were doing, but if their ideal outcome left Amber healthy and alive, Qrow would give up drinking on the spot.

What did he have to lose?

Unbidden, faces swam across his face. One missing. One as good as. And one so withdrawn into his sorrow from the other two that he may as well have joined them.

He tried to clear his thoughts, and two more joined the other three. The girls, tiny and afraid, the spitting image of their parents. Dependent on him, as everyone always ended up being.

What did he have to lose? _Everything_. But that was nothing new to him.

He was too far. He had _one shot_ at this. If he was wrong, and fortune swung the other way…

He flared his Aura. Pushed it into his Semblance, with everything he had. Hoped against hope that misfortune would fall upon someone other than himself today.

Leaped into the air, to preserve his momentum. Twisted in mid-air, to add as much strength as he could… and _hurled_ his blade directly at the assassin in red.

He knew, the moment it left his fingers, that he had made a mistake.

Harbinger dipped in its arc, pulled down by gravity, too soon, and skipped along the ground. It must have hit a rock at just the right angle, because the second time it skipped, the twin barrels fired, alerting the assassins to his presence.

 _Fuck it_. He poured on the speed, trailing behind his blade as it struck the ground a third time. This time, the vibration engaged the servos, and the sword began to unlock in mid-air.

The two lackeys holding Amber turned to see the commotion. The woman in red faltered for a moment, then hastily turned back to her task. Qrow watched in horror as something black and sticky shot out of her glove, wrapping itself around Amber’s head.

Harbinger had finished extending, and the handle shot out, bouncing the newly-formed scythe high in the air.

Qrow felt his heart sink into his stomach as it started falling directly towards Amber.

And then, the wind picked up, and Harbinger _curved_ in its flight to neatly sever the black strands connecting her to the assassin.

He was close enough now to hear her scream in fury. His long legs pounded the unpaved road. Three steps. Two.

Fire lanced under his feet, exploding the space he had just been occupying. He darted to the side and continued forward, his eyes set on one goal and one goal only.

One step.

And then the fallen Maiden was in his arms, as he ducked past a trio of explosive arrows, skidding to a halt beside a tree stump, in which his scythe had embedded itself.

He placed her carefully on the ground, propped her up against the stump, and stood up to face the trio.

Kids. They were just _kids._  A girl in green raised twin pistols at him, as a hard-faced boy in silver shifted his fists and feet into a defensive stance. And the other - the woman in red - stood dumbfounded as the white opera glove on her right hand dissolved into nothing.

She stared at her hands, turning them back and forth. “No. No, that shouldn’t have… it’s not _enough._ It was supposed to be _mine!_ ” Her eyes, one barely visible beneath her bangs, blazed with fury, as her head snapped up to meet Qrow’s gaze. “You will _pay_ for that!”

The girl in green turned to her companion. “Cinder, this is out of our league, we need to abort.”

Qrow casually reached over and plucked Harbinger from the stump. “Your friend’s right, Cinder,” he said, twirling it idly in his hands once, twice, three times, before bringing it to a loose ready position. “Your luck has run out.”

“Like _hell_ it has,” Cinder snarled. She grabbed her bow off her back, split it into two wickedly curved blades, and rushed forward.

Qrow sighed, shifted his feet, and tensed up for one decisive strike.

The crack of thunder almost pitched him off his feet again, and a bolt of lightning streaked past him to strike Cinder square in the chest. There was a flash of orange as her Aura visibly shattered from the blow, and she was thrown a dozen feet down the road, bouncing once off the unpaved dirt path before rolling, limply, to a halt.

The girl in green and the boy in silver glanced at each other in unison and promptly _vanished._

Qrow blinked. There was no telltale burst of speed, no smoke, no indication of any means for the assassins to have escaped. They simply _disappeared._

“That’s… not something you see every day,” he said to himself. Well, not quite only to himself. “What about you?”

He turned as he spoke, making it absolutely a question that was a casual aside, and not _at all_ one of cautious concern.

Amber, the Fall Maiden, stared up at him. Her arm was still outstretched, pointing directly at where she had hurled the bolt of lightning at Cinder. Her face was raw from where Cinder’s _whatever the fuck that was_ had wrapped around her head, raised welts that had swollen her left eye shut.  “Not before today,” she agreed. “Can you get us to safety?”

“Or die trying,” Qrow said. It shouldn’t have been a legitimate gamble.

“Good,” said Amber, nodding in thanks, her voice heavy with relief, “because I’m going to pass out now.” Matching word to deed, her eyes immediately fluttered back as she tipped over.

“Great,” Qrow muttered, truly to himself this time, as he caught her before she hit the ground. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket for his flask. “Oz is going to kill me.” His hand came out empty, and he started patting down his other pockets.

Damn. Left it back in town. Of all the luck.

 

* * *

**Chapter One  
Red Alert**

* * *

 

There was a saying: _“There’s a sucker born every minute.”_

Historians were a bit sketchy on its origins, of course - some say that it was a famous phrase of a well-known carnival barker, others say there’s no actual record of the man saying anything of the sort - but public opinion on the _phrase itself_ was fairly solid.

It was a phrase that encompassed all of human society from time immemorial. It was a long-standing _tradition_ , really, if one thought about it. Con men throughout history were grifting the unwary ever since there was a concept of some _thing_ to grift them out of.

Long-standing tradition. That was the term, absolutely.

Roman flicked his lighter and lit a cigar as he led the way into the Dust shop. Counter-service robberies were a bit _beneath_ him these days, but sometimes the job was what it was, and there was an awful lot of lien at the other end of this. Expenses, a flat consulting fee, and whatever else he could skim off the top? A contract like that was practically bursting at the seams with opportunity.

If brigand he must be, then he’d do so with glee. Roman Torchwick always approached his opportunities with a spring in his step, a song in his heart, and a fully loaded cadre of expendable, rented goons at his beck and call.

(Roman had tried hiring his own syndicate of kneecap-smashers back in the day, but it was simply more cost-effective to outsource. You paid by the hour, and if anything untoward happened to your temporary posse? Why, you paid the deductible and _went on your merry way._ )

(Hired help was, in many ways, a buyer’s market.)

There was, in fact, a sucker born every minute. That much was absolutely true. Roman had spent his entire life making sure that he would never be one of them.

He gestured to a store that still had its lights on. Junior Xiong’s rent-a-goons flanked him and pushed the doors open, startling the old man behind the counter.

“Do you have any idea,” Roman announced, broadly to the world around him but _specifically_ to the old man, “how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?”

The old man held up his hands as the brute squad raised their weapons. “Please, just take the money and leave.”

“Oh, we’re not here for your money,” Roman said, his voice soothing and conciliatory. “Just your Dust. Your best crystals, if you please.”

He stood by as the goons opened cases and started packing away all the Dust they could carry. Crystals from the display case, powder from the dispensers along the walls - Roman meant to take all of it.

Generally speaking, Dust shops weren’t worth robbing - the price gouging the Schnee company employed to keep their competitors out of business also meant that it wasn’t worth selling on the open market. That, and any violent acts inside a store could risk an ignition, and that much Dust in close proximity? Too dangerous to consider. It just wasn’t worth robbing a Dust shop for the money.

It was a good thing that Roman wasn’t robbing it for the money, then.

There was a commotion in the back of the shop. One of the thugs slid across the tile floor, crumpled to the ground and coming to a stop at Roman’s feet.

“Check it out,” he instructed one of the others and resumed counting crystals.

He wasn’t selling the Dust. It was already paid for, in his services and his expertise. He just needed to fulfill the request, by any means possible. It was a lot of Dust, more than just one shop could cover, but he had some time to—

Another crash grabbed his attention, and he jerked his head up in time to see a henchman - the one he’d sent to check out the noise - sail through the air and crash through the plate glass window. The henchman was followed by a red and black blur, soaring through the now open window in a burst of wind and, for some reason, rose petals.

 

* * *

 

 _This is exactly what Yang does at night_ , Ruby thought to herself as she landed in the street. _Loud noises, explosions, fights in darkened alleys and dismal nightclubs._

She reached behind her and unhooked Crescent Rose from its frame on her back. _Absolutely what Yang does without telling anyone._

Although it was Main Street, fully lit by the moon and the rows of street lights, and she had relocated the fight outside to _avoid_ an explosion.

She allowed herself a grin as she triggered Crescent Rose’s mechanism, slamming the base into the ground while it unfolded into its full length and unveiled the wicked sharp scythe blade. Yang never _actually_ told her the details, so it didn’t really matter. _Close enough, still counts._

Ruby counted the men as they filed out of the storefront, arranging themselves in a half-circle around her. That, plus the matching black and red outfits, meant they were definitely from some sort of organization, and that always meant a _crime lord_ in the comics.

_I wonder if Yang ever fought a crime lord._

Standing in the doorway, watching the henchmen surrounding her, was a man in a white overcoat. His hair, orange as a candle flame, fell over his right eye, and he reached up to adjust his black bowler hat. “It’s just a kid,” he said, his tone more annoyed than anything else. “Get her.”

The henchmen rushed her, and she started dodging.

Henchmen. Hench-man. That was a funny word. To hench. He henches, she henched, they will hench.

Ruby allowed herself a chuckle as she flipped her scythe blade over, bringing the short toe-blade on the reverse around to catch the largest attacker behind his collar (he was the henchiest of the men, she realized with glee) and, with a deft flick, leveraged him around and flung him into a pair of garbage cans set on the street corner.

There was a flash of steel, which she met with another twirl of the handle, catching the barrel of a handgun that had been aimed at her head like a club. The henchman struggled against her grip for a moment.

“Hey,” she asked him, while she had his attention, “is a lady henchman a henchwoman? Or is it a gender-neutral term?”

“What?” replied the thug, clearly the academic of the bunch.

“I mean, they never actually use the term ‘henchperson’, so I didn’t want to say the wrong thing,” Ruby explained. She reversed her grip on the handle and pressed the trigger, allowing the recoil of the high-powered rifle shot to spin her around the thug. His own gun caught on the scope assembly, and he was dragged around in a circle while she used the flat of her blade to clock another hopeful assailant across the temple.

“You shouldn’t misgender a criminal just because they’re a criminal,” she added helpfully.

“I… I don’t actually know,” the man said.

“Oh.” Ruby sighed, then kicked him in the face. He went down like a sack of potatoes. “I’ll have to ask someone else.”

She planted the blade in the asphalt and used it as an anchor to pivot around the handle, ducking under a pair of fists as she swung back around to the other side. The motion carried her to a firing angle, and she took a quick shot at the leader in the white coat. She didn’t stay still enough to see if it connected, however, because there was a hail of Dust rounds in the air, all converging on her. She kicked the blade out of the asphalt, braced herself against the flat rest she’d built at the base of the blade, and fired again, propelling her backwards.

 _And Dad said I’d overdesigned Crescent Rose,_ she thought, using the rifle to bounce herself back and forth across the street, zig-zagging out of any easy line of fire. Her scythe was a perfect specimen of modern engineering, collapsible with a bolt-action ammunition delivery system that was operable in literally every single configuration, a variable angle high impact blade, and also it was _red._

Ruby really liked unconventional angles of attack; neither humans nor Grimm dealt well with foes that bounced around the battlefield the way she was currently doing, and the explosive course changes that Crescent Rose could add to her own Semblance-enhanced running speed let her explore every opening she could find in a much greater range than anyone would expect. Three more bounces brought her back into the fray, her feet touching ground for the first time since the initial burst, and she brought the weight of the weapon crashing down on the goon in front of her.

Three more quick bursts of speed and she was alone in the street with the leader. All the black-and-red suits were either unconscious or limping away in pain.

The man in white sighed. He stepped out of the shop and glanced at his fallen men. “Well, _you_ were worth every cent, truly you were.” He stepped over one of the motionless bodies as he sauntered forward.

“Well, Red, it’s been fun, but I’m on a clock...” He raised his cane and pointed it directly at Ruby. “...so it’s time for all the good little girls to say goodnight.”

Ruby tensed as the foot of the man’s cane flipped open to reveal a gun barrel. _No, wait,_ she realized with a sudden jolt, _not a gun—_

She leaped upwards with all her might, just barely swinging Crescent Rose downward fast enough to use the recoil to kick herself higher than the _miniature rocket_ that struck the asphalt directly under her feet.

If that was the kind of weaponry that criminals had access to, Ruby was almost tempted to rethink her career path. Well, not really, but… _almost._

 

* * *

 

“Kids today,” Roman muttered as he pulled himself up to the roof of what appeared to be, before half his rented brute squad crashed through the windows, a laundromat.

It didn’t matter. He had the case, which meant he had the Dust. Not quite the full score that he was hoping for, but this was only one hit of many, still a lucrative one at that.

He grabbed his scroll from his pocket and sent a quick message. **_Job done. Extraction for one. Assume cops._**

He waited a second for a confirmation. No text sent back, but there was a high-pitched whine in the air that he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been listening for it. Perfect. Time to go.

“Hey! Hold it right there!”

Great. Another high-pitched whine. He sighed and turned to see the kid there, her ridiculously oversized weapon somehow not toppling her over.

“I’d love to stay and chat, Red,” Roman said, reaching into his coat pocket, “but I literally have a million better things to do. You understand, right?”

The sound of the engine he’d been listening for grew deafening, and he grinned. The searchlights of the Bullhead he’d been waiting for switched on, illuminating him from behind, and the glare shadowed his movements from immediate view. “But I’ll leave you with this parting gift,” he shouted, tossing a red Dust crystal at the girl’s feet. She had her arms up to shield her eyes from the sudden light, and couldn’t react fast enough to stop Roman from raising his cane and blasting the crystal.

The explosion was magnificent. He didn’t stop to watch it, however - he’d already turned to jump into the waiting personnel bay of the aircraft, thumping the bulkhead as he landed to confirm he was on board.

Something barely grazed his ear at high speeds. He switched hands on the guardrail and whirled around. Red was there, not even singed, and he quickly saw why: a taller woman was standing in front of her, her Aura flaring as she raised her weapon for another attack.

He thumped the bulkhead again, grabbing the pilot’s attention. She glanced up at him, one smoldering eye visible beneath the fringe of her dark hair. The other woman in the cockpit did not react - she was, as always, all business.

“We’ve got a Huntress,” he warned, sliding into the pilot’s chair just as she left it to go handle the situation.

He glanced at his co-pilot. “Even odds on her handling it?”

The woman sitting next to him raised an eyebrow, before turning mismatched eyes back to the controls.

Roman sighed. “Everybody's a critic.”

 

* * *

 

When the Dust crystal blew, Ruby only had enough time to throw her arms up to shield her face. Careless. She’d been _careless_ , and that much Dust at once—

A glowing purple sigil interposed itself between the explosion and Ruby, catching the force of the blast and diverting it around her. The heat was almost unbearable, but almost was enough in this case.

She blinked up at the Huntress now in front of her, shielding her from further attack. Blonde hair, pulled back into a severe bun, with one curly forelock framing the right side of her face.

The Huntress straightened her glasses as she glared at Ruby, ensuring that nobody was any more than minorly singed, then turned her attention back to the hovering airship.

Ruby had seen her before, she was sure of it. The white blouse, buttoned _most_ of the way up, tucked into a high-waisted black pencil skirt, gave her an extreme schoolteacher vibe, an effect only slightly mitigated by the artfully tattered crushed velvet cape that was even now whipping around in the winds created by the Bullhead’s thrusters.

The Huntress tensed, and Ruby turned her attention back to the Bullhead. Standing in the doorway, obscured by the glare from the airship’s spotlights, a woman was carefully aiming a weapon. Her dress lit up with orange-red glyphs - fire-type Dust sewn into the cloth, Ruby realized with a start - and a trio of arrows shot out, piercing the rooftop in a triangle around the Huntress. The tips of the arrows lit up the same shade as the assailant’s dress, and the patch of roofing around them started to glow, emitting a frantic screech of rapidly heating metal.

The Huntress jumped backward, pushing Ruby out of the way of the rooftop exploding into a cloud of flame and superheated ceramic shards, shrapnel that froze in midair as Glynda waved her riding crop, her Aura pulsing the same shade of purple as the underside of her cape.

And it _was_ Glynda Goodwitch, Ruby was now absolutely sure of it. Not only had she grown up listening to the stories of Dad and Uncle Qrow’s old team and their exploits at school, but she had stolen Yang’s admissions brochure to Beacon Academy when she wasn’t looking. Prominently displayed on the list of faculty? Assistant Headmistress, Glynda Goodwitch. Trained Huntress, Dust Specialist.

Listed Semblance: **Telekinesis**.

The twisted shrapnel reformed into an enormous spear, which Glynda sent rocketing towards the Bullhead with a burst of Aura and a wave of her hand.

What followed was something Ruby would remember for the rest of her life. Two wills clashing, two Huntresses facing off at the height of their power. Ruby could only guess that the other woman was in fact a Huntress, but regardless of whether or not she followed that particular path, she had training and she had _skill._

The lance was deflected by a wave of flame, sparked from a pair of explosive arrows. The shrapnel twisted around the airship, splitting into three streams and striking off the armor plating, before coming back for a second pass.

Whoever was piloting the Bullhead was good, too - the airship banked with just enough time to avoid taking a stream of shrapnel to the starboard engine, and instead merely let it tear through the canopy.

A fresh volley of arrows were deflected by a redirected stream of shrapnel, which was duly incinerated by a wave of fire from the woman hand, having gathered as much of the Dust from her dress as she could in one pass. Glynda sent the remaining batch of her improvised missiles to pierce the canopy at the helm of the Bullhead, which must have dealt at least some damage to the people inside, because the craft started wobbling to regain control.

Ruby converted Crescent Rose to its bolt-action rifle configuration and started sending shot after shot at the airship, each one deflected by an orange burst of Aura.

The woman took advantage of the opening to send a full brace of arrows streaking towards Ruby, surrounding her with a patch of fire priming itself to explode beneath her.

Glynda whipped her riding crop behind her, and Ruby felt herself picked up off the ground and thrown across the rooftop, just before a series of explosions vaporized the spot she had just been standing. The Huntress likewise had to throw herself out of the way of another series of blasts to avoid the same fate.

By the time the smoke cleared, the airship had peeled away, too far and too fast to chase on foot. Ruby pulled herself to her feet and glanced up at Glynda, who straightened her glasses once more and set her jaw.

Ruby sighed. She was in _trouble,_ she just knew it.

 

* * *

**World of Remnant  
Huntsmen**

Ever since the Great War and the dissolution of the monarchies, the Four Kingdoms have existed in a time of cautious peace. Trade between nations were at an all-time high, and the establishment of the Vytal Festival maintained the competitive spirit that has, for the time being, been an adequate replacement for war.

But the Kingdoms do face other threats than diplomatic and economic ones; bandits, natural disasters, and the eternal presence of the Creatures of Grimm. While the nations do have their own armed forces to protect themselves, the same is not always true of the people and goods that travel the roads, skies, and seas between cities, and not all of the quiet country villages have a standing militia.

Thus, the Huntsman Academies. One for each Kingdom, the Academies take in promising students and turn out full-fledged Heroes of the Realm.

Huntsmen and Huntresses fill a variable role in society at large. Most are based in cities, taking jobs from Hunt Boards that are requested through the Academies proper. These jobs can take a Huntsman anywhere in the world, and are a major source of income, as every job posted has been vetted and approved. Sometimes a Huntsman is needed to escort a ship through hostile territory, defending the cargo and crew from bandits and Grimm alike. Other requests can have a team eradicating an infestation of Grimm from a nearby town, or to provide security for a pre-planned event out in the fields.

Not all Huntsmen stick to the job boards, however. Many choose to wander the world on their own merit, offering their services to villages and farmers who may not be able to contact an Academy for an official request.

Some Huntsmen are employed as local town constabularies, taking advantage of the Academy’s training in local laws as well as combat ability. Others choose to join the military branches, their education propelling them quickly up the ranks to prestigious postings and government contacts. A smaller number will settle down and simply live in a village, offering their services in payment for food and housing, but otherwise enjoying the quiet life out in the country.

Many Huntsmen return to the Academies, or the feeder schools surrounding them, to share their knowledge and experience for the next generation.

Regardless of a Huntsman’s chosen career path, there are three things that are always common knowledge.

One, a Huntsman is always a person of interest wherever they go, for good or for ill.

Two, Huntsmen talk. All the time. Especially if they’re from the same graduating class. Even if news doesn’t make it to official channels, if a Huntsman knows something, their friends will know it soon enough.

Three, the life of a Huntsman is one of action, always. Even if they retire into teaching, they remain Huntsmen and Huntresses, and always carry themselves as such.

It’s an open secret, unspoken, but acknowledged: No Huntsman has ever died of old age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is I, the henchiest guy.


	2. Little White Lies

“So I was like BANG, ZOOM, WHOOOSH, and they couldn’t even touch me!” Ruby punctuated each sound effect with an elaborate gesture, throwing her arms wide and nearly smacking her elbow into the railing as she did so. 

“Those new stabilizers you got me are _amazing,_ ” she added, reaching back to pat her weapon, neatly in its rack at the back of her black and red dress. 

Taiyang tried to keep the grin off his face but failed miserably. “I’m glad they worked out for you,” he said, “but that really was dangerous. I’m honestly happier that you didn’t get hurt.” 

“Daaaaaad,” Ruby groaned. “I had it under control. My Aura kept the worst of it away, and they were two-bit minions at _best._ ” 

“I had a talk with the Lieutenant back at the station,” Tai reminded her. “Every single one of those men had warrants out for their arrest.” 

Ruby huffed. “ _They_ started it.” She crossed her arms and glanced away, staring blankly at the water below them. 

The ferry ride from the Vale capital city to their home island of Patch wasn’t very long, and Tai had hopped on the first one he could get when he got the call. His youngest daughter, in for questioning after getting caught up in a Dust shop robbery? 

He sighed. It’d be far too easy to say that she’d gotten that from her Xiao Long blood, but Summer used to get like that too if she thought that there was something nearby that she had the power to fix. 

“They started it,” he agreed, “and you certainly finished it. Don’t get me wrong, Ruby, I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself and helping to protect that shopkeeper.” 

Ruby’s face lit up, and Tai thought that her feet would actually leave the ground, she was bouncing so hard with glee. 

“But that guy you chased down, he was way out of your league. You could have gotten hurt.” 

“I didn’t, though!” 

“But you _could have,_ and that’s the point. You were lucky.” Tai crossed his arms and glared down at her. “What’s the one thing I always say about luck?” 

“You can’t rely on it, a Xiao Long makes her own luck,” Ruby recited. 

“I’d have expected this from Yang, not you,” Tai continued. “She goes out on her own often enough as it is, you could have taken her with you.” 

Ruby winced. “You, uh. You know about that?” 

“It’s _Yang,_ ” Tai said as if it answered everything. Which, in many respects, it did. “She’s many things, but ‘subtle’ is not one of them.” 

“Heh, yeah, that’s right.” Ruby turned to face the sea, watching the shoreline grow closer as the ferry made its final approach. 

Tai rested his elbows on the railing and stood there in companionable silence with his youngest daughter. The one who he thought was turning out to be the least like him, but as recent events proved, definitely had that Xiao Long fire in her. 

 _She’s not going to be a kid forever, Tai._ That’s what Qrow said when Taiyang found out that she had asked him to teach her how to fight. As much as Tai was loathe to admit it, his brother-in-law was right about that, at least. 

“Hey, Dad?” 

“Mm?” 

Ruby didn’t look up from the crashing waves. “Are my eyes really that rare?” 

Tai froze. _Ozpin. What did you say to her?_  

“I mean,” she continued, “I always thought they were grey, you’d think grey eyes weren’t all that common, but not enough to notice, right? Yang’s eyes are purple, and not a lot of people have purple eyes.” 

“Your mom used to say they were grey, too,” Tai said, carefully. 

“Professor Ozpin, he seemed surprised by them.” Ruby glanced upwards, meeting Tai’s gaze with her own. 

There was a muted thump as the ferry made contact with the dock. 

“There was a lot you did tonight that surprised him,” Tai said. He reached over to ruffle Ruby’s hair. “You’re full of surprises, you know that?” 

Ruby grinned and ducked her head out of Tai’s reach. “Oh! That reminds me. You’ll need to grab my transcripts when you’re in the office next.” 

“...why?” 

“Because I’m getting moved up two years and starting Beacon early and I’m going to go tell Yang and Zwei and Uncle Qrow if he hasn’t left yet _okay bye!_ ” 

There was a burst of red rose petals, and Tai was suddenly left standing on the ferry’s deck alone. 

“...wait. What? _Ruby!_ ”

 

* * *

 **Chapter Two**  
**Little White Lies**

* * *

 

The capital city of Vale was a bustling metropolis, nestled between an ocean and a ridge of mountains. These provided natural borders against the creatures of Grimm, allowing the kingdom to concentrate its forces to protect the northern and southern borders with greater success. As such, the initial settlement surrounding the palace spread, the urban sprawl expanding the city quite a distance. The villages at the kingdom border became inner-city boroughs, as the limits pushed further and further, with newer, stronger buildings along each new border, and an ever-increasing population of citizens ready to fill them. 

Each of these boroughs kept the name of the original villages they had once independently been, but all were part of the Capital City. It was all Vale, from coast to cliffside, from forest to valley. 

The palace, originally belonging to the monarchy, was constructed high above the city, nestled into the mountains themselves. The great Emerald Tower provided a beacon of safety to the citizens, as they knew the great Warrior King was watching over not just them, but the entire countryside. When the monarchies were disbanded following the Great War, the palace was converted from the seat of government into the central institution for higher learning and the training of heroes. Though its method has changed, the Emerald Tower remains the Beacon of Vale— 

Weiss Schnee flipped the brochure closed and set it aside. Really, the things do just go on, pushing the most carefully constructed façade, when it could simply just provide the information that she needed in a few concise statements. 

 _‘Provided a beacon of safety,’_ how droll. Yes, they managed to make a pun out of the name of the school. Whoever wrote that copy was probably the menace of the office, elbowing anyone who came within arm’s reach to point out how clever they were. 

It didn’t matter, in any case; she was already going to Beacon Academy, and she didn’t need a cheaply-printed brochure to sell her on it. 

The entire trip had made her anxious, she had to admit – given the circumstances surrounding her departure, she had half expected the shuttle pilot to turn around halfway and take her back home. But there they were, flying over the mountains of Sanus. 

“Klein, how much farther is it?” she asked, for probably the twelfth time. 

Weiss’s father hadn’t approved of her choice of schools, but he insisted on sending the family attendant alongside her, both to assist in the journey and to protect his investment. Weiss herself hadn’t complained; Klein Sieben had been with the Schnee family for as long as she could remember, and she felt more comfortable in his presence than anyone else outside the manor – and though she wouldn’t dare say so out loud, many of the people inside, as well. 

Klein’s eyes flickered red for a moment as he huffed, but he pulled out his scroll and checked their itinerary. “About three minutes since the last time you asked, Miss.” He flipped through apps and pulled up a holographic map of the surrounding area, projecting it into the shuttle’s cabin. “This is our route here—” he traced the path from Atlas to Vale on the map, then moved his finger to the blinking white dot in the mountains, “—and this is us, right now.” 

Weiss traced the route with her own finger. Frowning, she pulled the brochure back out and opened it to the map of the area surrounding Vale. Those mountains were… so that means… 

She raced over to the window and watched as the ship crested the final cliffs, opening up to the valley – and the city – below. 

Well, never mind about the hyperbole, that brochure was _accurate._  

The city itself stretched as far as Weiss could see to the north and to the south, and the spires of Beacon Academy stood proudly above them. The Emerald Tower itself dwarfed the rest of the Academy, the faces of the old clock tower replaced with open glass, with the machinery inside having been replaced with a series of shining verdant globes, suspended at irregular heights and slowly orbiting each other within the tower. 

The buildings of the school proper spread out into the north and south wings, roughly tapering off to encircle the massive courtyard in front of the airship landing pads, perched at the edge of the man-made cliffside that overlooked the city below. 

A hand on her shoulder made her turn around. Klein smiled up at her, his brown eyes twinkling. “Everything you thought it would be, Miss?” 

“I hope so, Klein,” she said, her hands checking and double-checking her rapier at her side. It had been specially forged for her, with the assumption that she’d be attending Atlas instead. That was a fight that, in all respects, hadn’t really ended so much as been diverted. 

In the end, it had been Winter who’d commented, almost as an aside, that having a Schnee presence at Vale would do wonders for marketing – if Beacon was willing to host the heiress, they could renegotiate their Dust supply contracts. The prestige alone... 

“For what it cost to get here, I really hope so.” 

 

* * *

 

It took less time than expected to unload her luggage from the shuttle onto the collapsible cart. 

It took a bit longer than she expected to say goodbye to Klein. Her father was away on business all the time, and the rest of her family tended to be in and out of the mansion almost on a whim, but Klein was always a constant. He’d come with the family, the way he’d tell it, and it had meant more than she was willing to admit that he’d escorted her to school. 

But. That was then. Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, was a Huntress _in potentia._ She was in the here and now, and here and now? 

 _(“yang i’m two years behind everyone i don’t have any friends here yet”)_  

She had her life in front of her. The wind was at her back. 

 _(“okay fine i guess i can just… find my own way…”)_  

She was, for the time being, free of her burdens, with nothing to stand in her way— 

In later years, she’d look upon this moment with fondness. Such a simple act would pave the way for the rest of her career, and it could all be traced back to this. In later years, she’d look back on this and laugh. 

She was not laughing now. Not when a girl, clad from head to toe in red and black with no concept of climate-appropriate aesthetics, walked backward into her luggage cart and spilled half her worldly possessions out onto the concrete. 

“What,” Weiss snapped, her tone dropping multiple degrees, “do you think you’re doing?” 

The girl sat up and raised her hand to her head. “Whoa, that was something else. Um.” She glanced up at Weiss, wilting slightly from the icy glare that met her gaze. “Hi? I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was—” 

“That is abundantly clear,” Weiss snapped, bending over to restack her luggage on the cart. 

The girl pushed herself to her knees and started grabbing bags. “Here, let me help you with that. I’m Ruby, Ruby Rose?” 

Weiss ignored the proffered hand, taking the opportunity to size her up. The black high-necked top looked warm enough for the climate, especially with the heavy red hooded cloak that was clasped around Ruby’s shoulders. Her skirts flared out over red leggings, while a pair of heavy combat boots completed the ensemble. It was… gaudy, but functional, Weiss noted. Rather fitting for the girl herself. 

The skirts were something she had in common with the accident-prone hellion. Flared above the knees, to provide maximum mobility and an added layer of protection from both the elements and Grimm attacks – Dust-reinforced thread in the weave of fabric made most clothing able to take a lot of punishment without tearing. 

She grabbed a briefcase out of Ruby’s hands. “Don’t _touch_ that, I don’t know where you’ve been!” 

She flipped the case open to inspect the contents, ignoring how the girl cringed at her comments. Crystals, powder, compressed cylinders custom-made for Myrtenaster… “They’re all here. Good. Do you know how expensive this would be to replace?” 

Ruby rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. “I mean, Dust can get pricey, but I’m sure I’d be able to cover it. Good thing it’s not broken, right?” 

“You’re absolutely right, it’s a good thing,” said Weiss. She pulled out a vial of red powder. “This is specially treated for my own needs. I don’t need someone like you smashing it to pieces.” 

She waved the vial around to emphasize her points. “Furthermore, you look way too young to be a student here.” 

“I, uh, had a special application?” 

“This isn’t your standard combat school, Miss Rose, and I will thank you for not barging into your fellow classmates. We’re all heavily armed, and with special ammunition like _this_ —” 

At the last wave of her hand, the vial slipped. Weiss shot her arm forward, trying to capture it again, but only managed to prod it further with her fingertips, sending it careening into the ground in front of Ruby. 

The vial shattered, scattering red powder into the air. 

Weiss groaned. “Look what you made me do!” 

Ruby sniffled. It was the wrong thing to do. Weiss watched, helplessly, as the girl realized that she had just breathed in a lungful of Dust, and with a shimmer of panicked Aura, her body convulsed, bringing it all out at once in an explosive sneeze. 

And explosive was, in fact, the word for this, since Ruby’s Aura flicker was just enough to ignite the glob of Dust and mucous into a close-range ball of fire. 

 

* * *

 

Ruby had worried about her first day at Beacon, her mind working overtime to provide nightmare scenarios, as only a teenager could. She’d been afraid that her classmates would all dismiss her for being two years too young, that Crescent Rose would fail the first day and she’d have to spend a week in the shop to get it back to its deadly efficiency. 

Exploding in the quad had, surprisingly enough, not been one of the things she was afraid of. 

What fun. She’d discovered a brand new form of humiliation. 

“I hope you can pay for that.” 

Ruby looked up into the hateful, accusatory eyes of the bossy girl in the white dress. Her shame boiled away, replaced by the fires of righteous fury. “Excuse me, _you’re_ the one who threw a vial of Dust at me,” she snapped, pushing herself to her feet. 

The bossy girl drew herself up to her full height, straightened her back, and balled her fists in indignation. “Excuse _me,_ do you have _any_ idea who you’re talking to?” 

“Leave her alone, Schnee.” 

Both Ruby and the Schnee girl whirled around to see a third person, holding another vial of Dust with the snowflake sigil on it. She had a lacy black jacket on over a white undershirt, purple ombré leggings darkening to black, an oversized black bow on the top of her head, and – what Ruby’s eyes settled on with a growing fascination that almost (but not quite) replaced her anger – what looked like a heavy bladed weapon on her back, with a trigger guard built into the hilt and a black ribbon trailing from the pommel. 

“And who are _you?_ ” huffed the bossy girl. 

The newcomer narrowed amber eyes. “Someone who doesn’t appreciate Weiss Schnee coming into a public school and immediately trying to throw her weight around. You’re on equal footing here, heiress; you should realize that before it comes back to bite you.” 

Weiss blinked in surprise, her train of thought entirely derailed. “You… I…” 

If Ruby hadn’t just been on the other end of the heiress’s scolding, she’d probably feel a bit sympathetic for her loss of words. As it was, she watched Weiss regain her composure and grab the last of her bags off the ground, stacking it neatly on top of the others on the cart and pushing it away without any further comment. 

Ruby probably should have felt a bit of vindication at this resolution, but she didn’t. There was just a sense of emptiness. 

“Good riddance,” the other girl said, almost as an aside more than anything else. 

“It’s her first day too,” Ruby found herself saying. “She’s probably just scared, same as me.” 

The other girl frowned, narrowing her amber eyes in thought. “What would someone like her have to be scared of?” 

“Everything,” said Ruby. “My dad always said, people with a lot of money don’t have a lot of friends.” She extended her hand in greeting. “I’m Ruby.” 

“Blake,” said the other girl, distractedly. “I… should get inside.” She walked off, leaving Ruby alone in the courtyard. 

It was an impressive courtyard, she had to admit. Benches lined the walkway from the airship landings up through the quad, which was framed by white columns and archways. The pathway lead to a central plaza, which split off into the entrances to the various buildings in Beacon’s outer wings – the dining hall and amphitheater were the closest, according to the map on Ruby’s brochure. 

Dad had said that in his day, the sidewalks were laid out in yellow, all leading to the central tower. It must have been remodeled since then; the sidewalks were a uniform light-grey concrete. Considering the number of mishaps that had to take place with a bunch of children with heavy artillery, it was probably cheaper to maintain than brick. 

The fountain in the central plaza showcased an impressive statue, and she stopped to admire it. Two figures, armed and armored, towering majestically over a fallen Beowolf. Two Huntsmen, protecting the future from the threat of the creatures of Grimm, leading the way to freedom and prosperity. 

It was why she wanted to be a Huntress, to follow in the footsteps of her parents before her. To protect the innocent, to fight the darkness to let the light shine through unabated. 

It was inspiring. 

“It’s kind of scary, isn’t it?” 

Ruby turned. The boy from the trip up from Vale – who’d been airsick about halfway up the mountain – had walked up to her right and was staring up at the statue. 

“Jaune, was it?” Ruby asked. He’d introduced himself to everyone after _almost_ making it to a garbage can, causing Yang to rush off to find something to clean her shoes with. 

Jaune nodded, lost in thought. 

“What do you mean, scary?” 

“Well, look at it, that’s a big nasty Grimm.” 

Ruby blinked in surprise. That was not what she had taken away from the scene. “Well, okay, that makes sense. But look at those Huntsmen up above it.” She pointed to the man with the upraised sword and the woman leaning on her greataxe. “They’re guardians and protectors, fighting the monsters so that others don’t have to.” 

Jaune stared up at the Huntsmen. “They’re _us,_ ” he said, realization dawning. His hand moved to his side, and Ruby saw the sword sheathed at his hip. 

“Ooh,” she said, “is that your weapon? Can I see?” 

They left the fountain, comparing weapons, and as she started in on Crescent Rose’s specifications and capabilities (her absolute favorite thing to talk about in the whole entire world), she thought back on her conversation with her sister on the ride up. 

 _You’re right, Yang. I guess I was able to make friends after all._  

 

* * *

 

The docks at Vale were split along the coast. North of the river was the Fisherman’s Pier, where the fishing boats, small merchant vessels, and the passenger liners docked. It was nestled right between the upscale commercial district and the more accessible meatpacking and processing plants along the river. 

Further north than that, of course, was the Hunters’ Run Marina, which was less of a dock and more a harbor for the yachts and pleasure craft for the city’s affluent. 

South of the river, in the heavier industrial center of the city, was the primary port for freight. The kingdom’s factories lined the streets, with an expansive warehouse district surrounding the docks themselves. These weren’t closed to the public so much as they were out of the way, specialized for heavy cargo, and often full of busy dockworkers who didn’t care when the next ferry to Patch was going to be, they had a job to do. 

Businesses came and went, and the warehouses exchanged hands often. Sometimes they fell into disuse, and sometimes there were other buyers who needed the space. People tended to look the other way in most cases – you didn’t examine other people’s businesses too closely, lest they look a bit too closely at your own. 

The Blue Mantle Ice Cream Company was one of those. Officially, the business had gone under five years ago, and the warehouse was mostly dark. Nobody was sure when or how the property had changed hands, but when the lights went on one day, nobody thought anything of it. 

Roman closed the door and dropped his hat onto a nearby table. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Junior’s not talking to me anymore, for one.” 

Neopolitan, his trusty assistant and second-in-command, didn’t even look up from her scroll, typing furiously with her right hand. She was seated at a table against the wall, her parasol at her side and her legs crossed demurely. She raised her left hand and twirled her finger, prodding him to get on with it. 

“That’s also the bad news,” Roman said. “You’re going to have to contact our benefactors and tell them that Dust shipments will be held up until they can get us some grunt workers.” 

Neo still didn’t look up, but when she blinked, her eyes had switched colors in annoyance. She rotated her hand and replaced her twirling index finger with an upturned middle. 

“You have a better idea?” Roman asked, moving over to the map he’d hung on the wall. The districts of the capital city were outlined in red, and he’d marked off all the Dust shops, refineries, and warehouses they still needed to raid to get the amount little miss sparks-for-eyes had requested. 

His own warehouse was only partway filled, the massive crates stacked haphazardly towards the far end. With the arrangement ended with Junior Xiong, Roman hadn’t had enough manpower to keep the place guarded, and so he and Neo had been taking turns watching the stash while the other went out. 

The tip of Neo’s parasol struck the map, tapping pointedly at a section of the Emerald Forest. Roman’s eyes went wide at the implication. 

“You’re kidding me. Those animals? They wouldn’t work with us, not in a million—” 

Neo held up her scroll, screen facing outward. It was open to a text conversation with an unknown number.

 

 **—tell your boss I’m only considering this because of our mutual contact.**  

 _I’ll have him on his best behavior, Taurus. You just hold up your end and you’ll have your cut._  

 **Original agreement isn’t enough. I’m taking 30%.**  

 _Send twice as many agents and we’ll give you 40._  

 **Done. Doublecross the White Fang and you’ll pay in blood.**  

_You old softie. We’ll be in touch._

 

“What would I do without you?” Roman asked, reaching over for a set of push-pins. 

Neo flipped pink bangs out of her face and grinned. She pocketed her scroll, slung her closed parasol over her shoulder, and gave a mock curtsy. 

Roman started marking out new locations on the map, putting pins into cross-streets and plotting out his next moves. The job was back on, for better or for worse, and it was best to get it over with. 

He glanced at his assistant, who had picked up a clipboard and was marking crates off a manifest. She noticed him looking, rolled her eyes, and gestured towards the empty floor space in the warehouse. 

“Alright, fine, you were right. You get to pick the next heist.”

 

* * *

 

Weiss waited while the rest of the first-year students gathered in the amphitheater. Her luggage had been taken by the staff, pulled off to the side along with her half-hearted warnings about litigation and other reprisals if anything should turn up missing. 

She felt oddly withdrawn, ever since leaving the courtyard. Once she was out of the line of sight, she’d doubled back to pay attention to the other two girls, in case they started talking about her behind her back. If Beacon was anything like Atlas, she’d need to keep her guard up, because enemies you made early on would follow you around for the rest of your days. 

Instead, Ruby and Blake’s brief interaction had caught her off-guard, and she’d slunk away before either of them noticed she had returned. 

 _She’s probably just scared, same as me. My dad always said people with a lot of money don’t have a lot of friends._  

Weiss had friends! Klein was her friend, and so was her fencing instructor, her vocal coach, Winter… 

A traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. _Your sister and two people your family pays to be near you. Those are some fantastic friends._  

No. Ruby had hit the nail on the head. Weiss didn’t have any friends. That was the reason she’d petitioned her father so hard to go to Beacon instead of Atlas – it would be a fresh start, she’d be able to approach people on her own terms, not just on the strength of her name. 

If enough people could look at her and see Weiss for who she was, not the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, maybe she’d be able to look into a mirror and see the same thing. 

 _You had the chance to be anyone other than ‘Jacques Schnee’s daughter’ and you threw it away._  

She waved away the intrusive thoughts, though she acknowledged them for what they were. She _had_ wasted her chance to put her best foot forward. 

A flash of red caught her eye, and she took a moment to compose herself. She’d wasted her chance, but that was fine. She was Weiss Schnee. If anyone could take a second chance at a first impression, it was her. 

Ruby Rose was deep in conversation with a taller girl, blonde and broad-shouldered. Weiss approached them, hoping to find a good place to present herself. 

“—I mean literally exploded, there was this mean girl and she yelled at me and threw a cloud of Dust at me and I sneezed and she wouldn’t stop yelling—” 

Weiss huffed. “Excuse me.” 

“ _It’s happening agaaaaain~_ ” 

The taller blonde blinked, lavender eyes flashing in the waning sunlight. “Oh my god, you really _did_ explode.” She squared her stance and glowered at Weiss. “What’s the deal, princess? Came back for round two?” 

“Hardly,” Weiss said, starting to draw herself up in affronted righteousness. She stopped herself, took a breath, and pulled out a brochure. “Here.” 

Ruby took it gingerly, as if afraid it would also explode. “What is it?” 

“Properties and reactive qualities of Dust,” said Weiss, her voice slipping into the singsong recitation of a carefully practiced speech. “As a representative of the Schnee Dust Company, it is my responsibility to transport and safeguard all Dust on my person, and your incident was the result of my own negligence. As such, I offer this to prevent any situations in the future.” 

Ruby flipped through the brochure. “Um. Thank you, Weiss.” 

The blonde girl crossed her arms. “Is that supposed to be an apology?” 

“Yang, it’s fine,” Ruby said, offering a conciliatory smile. “It’s water under the bridge. Or over the mountain. Water over the bridge.” 

Yang sighed. “Alright. I trust your judgment here.” 

Weiss gave a slight curtsy. “Good luck in your school year, Miss Rose.” 

With that, she turned and walked away. There, she’d rectified her mistake. Her conscience was clear, the slate was clean, the metaphors were well and truly mixed, and with any luck, she’d never have to speak to Ruby Rose or her other friends, ever again.

 

* * *

 

Ruby watched as Weiss disappeared back into the crowd of students. 

“You want me to kick her ass?” Yang asked, trying to make it sound casual. 

Ruby grinned. “No, it’s fine.” She scanned the rest of the crowd, just to see who else was waiting for orientation to begin. 

Jaune waved at her from across the room. She waved back. “Besides, you were the one who said I needed to learn how to deal with people on my own, right?” 

“That was about making friends and you know it,” Yang said, cracking her knuckles. “Not about prissy figure skaters who blow up my sweet baby sister.” 

“Tell you what, if she starts chucking Dust at us again, you’ve got first crack at her.” 

“Deal.” 

Ruby grinned. It was good being at school with Yang. It was different than back at Signal, being two years apart, and they only really saw each other at lunch and at home. In the same year at Beacon, though? They’d have classes together, they’d eat lunch together— 

She froze as she came to a sudden realization. They could even be on the same _Huntress team_ together! 

Everything truly was coming up Rose. 

The sound of someone clearing their throat over the loudspeakers pulled her out of her thoughts. Ruby glanced up to the stage, to the three teachers at the podium. She’d already met two of them; Assistant Headmistress Goodwitch was off to the side, a clipboard in her hand and a stern expression on her face, and tapping the microphone was Professor Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon, who’d approached her at the police station and offered her early placement. 

The third person wasn’t familiar, and Ruby found herself staring at her. She was a shorter woman, with a golden-brown complexion. She was wearing a teachers’ uniform, but her features were hidden under the tan hooded cloak. 

“I’ll keep this brief,” Professor Ozpin said into the microphone, his voice amplified through the speakers throughout the amphitheater. “All of you have come to Beacon for one reason, and one reason only: to become a Huntsman. The journey will be perilous, and you will not find shortcuts here. If you were looking for an easy career, I advise you to leave now.” 

“He seems intense,” Yang whispered. 

“Those of you who wish to continue, you will find resources, education, and opportunities. Your path is a noble one, and you will need every advantage you can find, as education can only take you so far. Your path is your own, and the rest is up to you. 

“Welcome to Beacon.”

 

* * *

 **World of Remnant**  
**Dust Types**

 _For a list of the physical forms of Dust, see_ _Dust Processing_ _._ _For other uses, see_ _Dust (disambiguation)_ _._

Classification of Dust is an incredibly important step in the refinement and usage process. While the four classical Dust types are abundant in nature – Fire, Earth, Wind, Water – it is increasingly common to find outcroppings of naturally mixed Dust, resulting in rarer and more volatile combinations. 

The floating islands of Lake Matsu are a natural source of the black-tinged Gravity Dust, for example, though since its discovery it has been a far more common practice to blend Earth and Wind in a laboratory in the exact amounts necessary to mass-produce Gravity for public consumption. 

It’s still unknown the extent of which the ambient Dust in the air collects into naturally-forming deposits, but it has been documented that this has resulted in the cross-contamination of previously pure sources of the classical elements. 

The Schnee Dust Company warns of any mixing of Dust types outside of a laboratory environment, a sentiment that many scholars agree with, but specialists out in the field have dismissed this as a form of corporate propaganda. So long as a person remains careful with their Dust usage, these specialists claim, mixing Dust can be extremely effective. **[Crosslinked article: Dust Blowback and Statistics of Survival, Vale General Hospital]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you blend Earth, Wind, and Fire Dust, you get music. I don't make the rules.


	3. Fade to Black

Preparation was the key to survival.

That was the lesson that Jaune Arc had learned over the years. You could be the best man in the world at improvisation, at coming up with new tactics on the fly, but the better you understood the _theory_ behind something, all the myriad consequences, actions, and reactions? The better you’d be able to adapt.

That was the main takeaway in such a large family, at least. Armies marched on their stomachs, and the Arc clan was a small army unto itself. When Jaune’s parents wanted to make plans, they had to prepare for any situation that might come up – and with eight children, literally any situation that could come up eventually did.

“Today, your years of training will be put to the test. Your first task is here, in the Emerald Forest.”

It was a lesson that Jaune took to heart. Any situation, large or small, could be dealt with if you only had the right amount of preparation. It was why he’d taken his family heirlooms to Beacon – the weapons of a warrior would help him learn to be a hero. His armor might not fit properly, but he’d grow into it.

This was what was expected of him. That was his legacy. It didn’t matter that he’d had to weasel his way into the school – the important thing was that here he stood, on top of a cliff, looking out over not just the countryside, but his future.

“You will face heavy opposition. Respond with all the power at your disposal, or you _will_ die.”

It was a long road, getting here, but here he was nonetheless. Him. Jaune Arc. Ready to learn how to be a Huntsman. Listening to his new headmaster talk about… landing strategies?

“Are there any questions?” concluded Professor Ozpin.

“Um, hi, I have a question,” Jaune said, raising his hand.

“Good,” said Ozpin, pressing a button on his scroll. To his left, Jaune’s new classmates started getting launched into the air at high speeds from the platforms they were currently standing on.

Platforms exactly like the one _he_ was standing on.

“Ah, Professor? When you said landing strategy, I was wondering if you could clarify what that meeeeeEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”

 

* * *

 **Chapter Three  
** **Fade to Black**

* * *

 

There was something comforting about the situation. It was ridiculous to think about; sailing through the air at high speed with your safe landing entirely your own responsibility? That should not be comforting in the slightest. And yet, it was.

It didn’t hurt that this was extremely similar to the last mission Blake had performed before heading to Vale. If anything, this was _less_ dangerous. There was no high-speed cargo train, no Atlas mechs, no… well, there was just no any of it. It was just her and the wind, whipping past her ears, and – save for the high-pitched screaming of the blond boy about half a klick south – no other noise. The city was _miles_ away, and while Grimm tended to be everywhere out in the wilderness like this, they were pretty much silent unless they were actively hunting.

Blake Belladonna was a woman of simple tastes. She liked solitude, quiet, a good book in her lap, and she was pretty much set.

She was extremely glad that her bow was staying on. She was worried about that coming loose on the first day, and so far it was holding up. It pinched a bit, where she had it tied, but that was a sacrifice she’d been willing to make. Keep the ribbon fastened, fluff her hair around the side of her head, and she was set.

The canopy of the forest was approaching fast. Blake stilled her thoughts and _pushed_ , forcing her Aura into the space she was currently occupying.

Whenever she created a copy of herself, it forced her out of the space. When she was on the ground, it helped her sidestep faster than she’d normally be able to move, using the push to duck out of the way of an incoming blow or to slide around to her enemy’s back and attack from their blind spot.

In the air, however, it was a fantastic way to alter her trajectory. Her shadow clones bounced her back and forth, narrowly avoiding trees, slowing her down enough that she could pull her blade out of its sheath and use it as a grappling hook, wrapping it around a particularly sturdy branch and letting the trailing ribbon slingshot her up and around. She grappled her way through the forest for a bit, using Gambol Shroud to sling herself through the trees, bleeding enough momentum until she could land in a rolling crouch on the ground.

She raised her weapon, scanning her surroundings.

The Emerald Forest was quiet, wrapping around the mountains from the city to the eastern side of the continent, nestled between the city and the coast. These were things that she’d been briefed on in her training – locations near Vale, places to set up camp, places of strategic value.

It was… _telling,_ that her parents, leaders and influencers both, had supported her plans to join a Huntsman Academy. They hadn’t even needed to forge transcripts from a mainland combat school – most children in Menagerie grew up learning how to protect their island from Grimm, and if she hadn’t unlocked her Aura at an early age, she wouldn’t have survived. That far outside of a kingdom, they’d been left to protect themselves, and like every other aspect of life in the southern hemisphere, they’d made the best of it. Growing up in Menagerie counted as homeschooling, as far as the application went, and that wasn’t even mentioning her particular… _extracurriculars._

(It was those extracurriculars that were the problem, really, and likely why Kali and Ghira Belladonna had been perfectly fine with the concept of inner-city protection and the training and support to come home a fully-trained Huntress.)

Blake had been trained for just about anything coming her way. Much like the Ursa hurtling backwards through the air directly towards her, roaring in defiance and trailing smoke.

Taking a step to the side, she swung the full force of her sheathed weapon at the Ursa, neatly severing its head as it sailed past.

There was more than just the quickly-dissipating miasma of an injured Grimm in the air, she noted, keeping her weapon at the ready. There was a whiff of ozone from a freshly discharged weapon, and the tell-tale tang of fire-aspected Dust permeated the trail. Which made sense; the Ursa hadn’t been coming at her under its own power. There was another student nearby.

She kept to the shadows, darting along the scent trail. The other student clearly didn’t need her help, what with the exploding Grimm and all, but it was good to know who was there. She did need to find a teammate, after all.

 

* * *

 

Beneath the forest, underneath the trees and the river and the ruins, there were caves. Relics of ancient travelers, seeking shelter. Caches of weapons and rations from wars long-past, battles lost to time and to history itself. In the bowels of the earth below the Emerald Forest, the past slumbered.

Until the arrival of prospective Huntsmen, crashing into the ground from miles away, sent tremors through the ground, rippling from multiple points of entry.

Deep in the bowels of the earth, the past stirred.

 

* * *

 

“I’d ask you what you were doing,” Pyrrha said, trying (and failing) to hide her amusement, “but I don’t really think it’d be appropriate.”

A few feet above her, pinned to a tree, was Jaune, glowering down at her. “Ha ha ha,” he deadpanned, twisting around to try to remove her lance. “Are you here to mock me like everyone else?”

Pyrrha grinned. “Why would I do that? Is there something funny I should know about?”

Jaune rolled his eyes. “Can you ask me anyway? I’ve had some time to think of a good response.”

“Alright. What are you doing, Jaune?”

“Oh, just hanging around.”

There was a moment of silence as the joke just hung there in the air, just like Jaune was doing.

“Would you like some help?” Pyrrha asked, after a few seconds.

“Yes please thank you that would be amazing.”

Though the lance was far above her reach, it was a simple matter to pluck it from the tree and Jaune’s hoodie, letting him crash down onto the ground in front of her.

He sprang up, massaging his arms. “I’m good! I’m good. I’m okay.”

Pyrrha inspected her blade, then twirled it around to replace it with her shield on her back. “I’m sorry for almost impaling you,” she said. “You didn’t look like you were slowing down, and I figured—”

“No, no, you’re absolutely right, I had no idea what I was doing,” Jaune said hurriedly. He pulled his hood around to inspect it, touching the hole neatly sliced through the fabric and wincing. “Better my sweatshirt than me, right? How’d you do that, anyway?”

Pyrrha blinked. “I’m marksman rated at both the spear and the rifle,” she said, slightly defensively.

They started making their way north through the forest, pushing their way through the undergrowth.

Jaune blinked. “Oh, right! Because of those tournaments, right? The ones Weiss mentioned?” He grinned at her. “That’s amazing, but that’s not what I meant, sorry. I should have clarified.”

It was Pyrrha’s turn to blink in confusion. This was not at all how this conversation usually went. Either the other person would simper up to her, to ask for an autograph or a sponsorship, or they’d accuse her of being boastful and arrogant, not at all mentioning how many years of training that such an accomplishment had taken to even attempt. Jaune’s casual acceptance and non-offensive deflection was not what she was expecting.

“How did I do what, then?” she asked, carefully.

“You pulled the spear out of the tree without even touching it!”

“Oh. That’s—” She paused. She usually tried to keep this quiet, but from Professor Ozpin’s rules, Jaune was her new teammate, and she needed to trust him. “That’s my Semblance.”

“The whole ‘personal superpower’ thing, right?” Jaune asked, just barrelling through.

Pyrrha felt like she had been dropped into another forest altogether and was having trouble finding her way. “That’s… one way to describe it. We all have our Aura, right?”

“Suuuure,” Jaune said, drawing the syllable out, almost like a question itself.

“Well, the manifestation of that for everyone else is different. Mine is Polarity.” She held her hands out into a ready combat stance, then _pulled_ her blade to her right hand and let her shield slide along her arm to its place at her left. “If I make contact with metal, I can control it magnetically.”

Jaune’s eyes were as wide as her shield. “That. Is so. _Cool._ ”

“It _is_ kind of cool, isn’t it?” Pyrrha agreed.

She let him get a few steps ahead of her as she sized him up. She’d had a first impression of him back at Beacon, after his first blundering attempt at hitting on her in the locker room. He’d been more interested in the Schnee heiress, and whatever annoyance Pyrrha had felt at the attempt was shelved at the sheer curiosity at being the _second_ choice.

Pyrrha wasn’t conceited. She worried about it, and certainly the bullies back at Sanctum had called her such ever since her first tournament win, but part of training your whole life to be the best was actually _being_ the best, with all the praise and pitfalls that came with it.

She hadn’t been second-pick for _anything_ since she was six years old. She’d forgotten what that even felt like. As irritating as the initial brush-off and the attitude of having to settle for her had been? It had been almost a _relief._

There was baggage there, she realized, somewhat as an afterthought. She’d have to unpack that later.

When she’d rescued Jaune from his fall and approached him, she was prepared for another round of bluster and bravado. Instead, this seemed to be the most genuine he’d been all day. The Jaune who was more starstruck at the fact she’d been on his favorite cereal than the reason that she’d had the contract in the first place.

She smiled to herself as they made their way to the next clearing. It was refreshing talking to someone without her identity hanging over her head. Jaune didn’t look at her as Pyrrha Nikos, Four-Time Tournament Champion. He looked at her as Pyrrha Nikos, girl with pretty cool magnet powers, who… impaled him on a tree.

_Small steps, Pyrrha._

Still, Pyrrha Nikos never did anything halfway, so as they made small talk, pushing their way through the forest, she made some evaluations.

“Jaune,” she said after he’d described all seven of his sisters, “do you need to adjust your armor?”

Jaune’s hand froze underneath his right shoulder plate. “Mm? What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve been fiddling with your pauldrons for the last half hour. Are the straps not holding?”

“They’ve just been sliding back and forth,” Jaune said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine.”

Pyrrha found herself at a loss. It was starting to become a commonplace occurrence.

“Jaune.”

Jaune stopped and turned to her. “Yes?” he said, frustration flickering in his eyes.

No. Not frustration. Embarrassment. It was evident, now that she was looking. The bravado, the ill-fitting armor, the way he didn’t seem that comfortable with his sword… Even the way he talked about his sisters showed that he was trying to come off as more capable than he felt he was. It was an act, to prevent people from seeing what he felt was the worst about him.

If there was a single thing that she could relate with, it was putting on a strong face to hide your uncertainty.

“I’m going to ask you a question,” she said, trying to sound as friendly and non-threatening as she could, “and I want you to actually answer, instead of getting defensive, okay?”

Jaune narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders. “Why are you saying it like that?”

“Jaune.”

“Okay, fine, fine, that’s fair. What is it?”

“Would you like me to show you how to adjust your armor sizing?” she asked.

This was clearly not the question Jaune had anticipated her asking. He raised his finger to make a point, but left it trailing in mid-air as his expression shifted from affronted rebuttal, to worry, and then finally to guilt. “Is it that obvious?”

“That it doesn’t fit?” Pyrrha responded, carefully deflecting. Whatever issues Jaune had, he’d need to bring them up on his own time. It was her job to be supportive, and let him know that she expected nothing but the same in return. “If your armor shifts, it isn’t protecting you. The plates will move out of the way when an attack hits, or even worse, will dig in and damage you itself. You need to adjust the fit.”

“You can do that? I thought I’d have to find the machine shop.” Jaune wriggled around in his breastplate, trying to get it to sit properly over his sweatshirt. “Is that a thing you can just, y’know, ‘ _vwoom vworp_ ’?”

He punctuated the sound effects with a waggle of his hands.

Pyrrha let out a soft chuckle. “No, this isn’t a magnetic thing. There should be adjustable straps. May I?”

At his nod, she approached, reaching underneath the pauldron for the straps. They were old-fashioned, solid leather and steel. It didn’t take her long to cinch it tight and securely, and she moved on to the other side, showing him what she was doing.

“So, see how that worked for your shoulder plates?” she asked.

“Yeah, that fits a lot better.” He moved his arms in tight circles, feeling how the plating hugged the joints without cutting into his skin.

“Alright, now do that with the rest.”

She talked him through adjusting his breastplate, trailing off when she saw the scrapes and cuts on his fingers.

He noticed her looking and drew them back, self-conscious all over again. “What? There are brambles and thorns all over.”

This was going to be a project, Pyrrha noted. She could already tell. But he was willing to put in the work, and that was already scores better than the toxic masculinity of his posturing earlier.

So, before they continued walking, she started to explain about Aura.

Neither of them noticed the scuttling in the bushes behind them.

 

* * *

 

They made their way silently through the forest, pointedly not talking to each other. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, Weiss was pointedly not talking to Ruby. Ruby just couldn’t think of anything to break the tension. Any minute now, she’d have a thoughtful question, or a leading comment, _something_ that Weiss would have to respond to.

Any minute now.

Aaaaaany minute.

_I’ve been spending too much time with Uncle Qrow. His bad luck has rubbed off on me._

“Soooo,” Ruby tried, drawing the word out as enticingly as she could.

“So,” Weiss replied, not looking back.

Ruby grinned. Crushed it first try. “What’s your specialty?”

Weiss glanced back at her. “In what regard?”

“Fighting! You’ve got a sword, and I haven’t seen you use it yet.” Ruby held her hands out in front of her, framing an imaginary sign. “What’s the ‘Weiss Schnee Monster-Killing Method’?”

Weiss frowned in thought, her fingers playing idly against the rapier fastened to her side. “Efficiently,” she said after a while, nodding her head sharply to punctuate the wisdom of this statement. “Though if you’re asking me what position on the battlefield I prefer, I do my best fighting at mid-range.”

Ruby leaned in for a closer look, ignoring Weiss pulling back reflexively. “That is really, really awesome,” she said. “I need to find a way to shore up my mid-range game. I mostly bounce between melee and extreme long-range.”

“What do you mean, bounce between? Don’t you pick one and stick with it?”

Ruby darted to the other side of the trail in a burst of petals. “Nope! I’m _super fast._ ”

“Good to know. Just stay out of my way, and we’ll be fine.”

“You won’t even know I was there,” said Ruby cheerfully. “Except for the fact that I will be there. A lot. Helping. So you will know I’m there because of that.”

“Fantastic.” Weiss sighed. “I just hope nobody else is having this much trouble.”

 

* * *

 

Cardin slammed full force into the tree, splintering the bark. The pack of Beowolves started circling, waiting for one of them to move in for the kill.

He raised his head, wiped a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth, and grinned. “You want some more? I’ve got some for _all of you_ , so come get it!”

He raised his warhammer and charged back into the fray.

 

* * *

 

“Who’s having trouble?” Ruby asked. She glanced around dramatically. “There’s no trouble here. Just a couple of badass Huntresses out on a mission.”

Weiss sighed. It was bad enough having to be stuck with the accident-prone Ruby, but it turned out that there was one thing even worse than that: The girl was _chipper._

It was fine. It was _fine._ She could deal with chipper. She’d have to. And in any case, the fact that Ruby was two years younger than Weiss had to mean _something,_ right? A professional educator like Ozpin wouldn’t extend an early admission to someone who hadn’t earned it.

( _You are there to represent the family, and by extension the Schnee Dust Company itself. Your application was of great political capital, Weiss, don’t forget it._ )

( _people with a lot of money don’t have a lot of friends_ )

Weiss shook her head to try to clear it. It didn’t help that Ruby was nattering on about something scythe related. If only she’d stop, the forest was quiet now and it’d be perfect for clearing her thoughts.

She blinked. Wait. Something wasn’t right about that.

“—and so I go through a lot more Gravity Dust than the other kinds ‘cause it increases the recoil, and I can use that to dart around.”

“Quiet,” Weiss hissed. “Do you hear that?”

Ruby stopped. “Hear what? Is there a noise? What kind of noise?”

“ _Ruby._ ”

“Right! Sorry!” Ruby clamped her hand over her mouth. A bit over-dramatic, to get the point across, but Weiss would take exaggerated gestures if it came with blissful silence.

Myrtenaster was in her hand in half an instant, chamber set to Fire. “There. Do you hear that?”

Ruby frowned. “No.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment, but then widened as comprehension dawned. “No, I don’t hear _anything._ ”

“Exactly,” said Weiss. Her eyes started scanning the bushes, looking for enemies. “There have been birds all around us until now.”

They circled each other slowly in the clearing, keeping their backs inward. Ruby’s comically oversized weapon was in her hands, and she was sweeping the sights along the trees.

“Weiss,” she said warily, “we should keep moving.”

“Agreed.”

They darted through the trees, heading towards the break in the canopy that signified the edge of the forest. The rest of the way was uneventful, but Weiss couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. She kept checking behind her, expecting to see snarling fangs or sharpened claws, but of the Beowolves or Ursa she knew to be in the forest, there was no sign.

There was no birdsong. There were no angry squirrels, darting rabbits, or graceful deer. The song of the cicadae had ceased.

It was _unsettling._

She had the passing thought that she should stand and fight, that a Schnee should never retreat. But that thought, too, was quickly drowned out by the oppressive silence.

The forest was _wrong,_ and thus they fled.

Behind them, the swarm followed.

 

* * *

 

Despite her claims that her sister would thrive on her own, Yang Xiao Long had hoped to find her first. It had been the two of them against the world for so long; it was only appropriate for them to continue that in their adult life. With two disappeared mothers, a frequently unavailable father (though Dad _had_ come back to himself after a few years of mourning for Summer, he still worked long hours at Signal), and an uncle that was away on so many missions that he might as well not even have a bed at home, Yang and Ruby were often all that each other had.

Still, if she couldn’t have Ruby as her partner, Blake Belladonna was turning out to be a more than decent replacement.

“So, new best friend,” Yang said, cheerfully, “what else do you like to do for fun? I saw the bags full of books last night, but you’ve got to have other hobbies, right?”

“Is now really the best time for this?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Blake brought her smaller blade up underneath the jaw of one of the circling Beowolves, ripping it free as it discorporated into the familiar black miasma. A flick of the wrist folded the blade against the barrel of the attached automatic pistol, and she spun in a crouch to blanket the field in covering fire. “We’re somewhat busy,” she eventually said.

Yang shifted her gauntlets' ammunition and sent out a pair of concussion missiles at the cluster of Grimm to her right. “I mean, it’s not like these guys are great conversationalists, but I see your point.”

She thrust her arms behind her and triggered a pair of kinetic blasts. The recoil launched her into the crowd of what Beowolves remained and, shifting into one of Taiyang’s combat forms, made short work of them.

Yang gave her dad a hard time about a lot of things, but he had taught her how to punch a Grimm’s head clean off, and in her opinion that was a skill every young woman should have.

She ejected the spent Dust casings and slotted in new ones. It took a few seconds – she’d forgotten her speed loader back at Beacon – but before long she was able to prime Ember Celica and be back at full readiness.

“Alright,” she said, rolling her shoulder. “Books and what else?”

Blake sighed and took point as they reached the edge of the forest. “I didn’t have much time for hobbies, growing up. Mostly we were on the move a lot.”

“Merchants?”

“Something like that.”

Yang nodded and hopped up onto a boulder. The field beyond the Emerald Forest was a short clearing, widening out into a massive ravine. There were ruins here, old ones. Certainly pre-War. She pointed out a bridge to the other side, and the two Huntresses started making their way towards it.

“So, books.”

“Books,” Blake confirmed. “I had a few that I kept in my bags. I could probably recite them by memory at this point.”

She raised a hand to her forehead, blocking the sun from her eyes. “There’s something coming.”

Yang looked up.

Dark wings, blotting out the sky. Not as large as some of the Nevermores she’d seen, but the avian Grimm was certainly nothing to sneeze at. It was angry, and it was circling them overhead.

Nevermores were a nuisance for her. Her best fighting was done at short range, and large vicious birds were seldom within punching range. The long-range Dust ammunition in her gauntlets was effective at letting her reach out and touch someone, but as satisfying as that was, it really was more of a stopgap until she could close the distance and apply her strength more directly.

An awful plan started forming in her head. Awful, terrible, absolutely should never be tried in any circumstances.

She wanted to do it _so bad._

“You know,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her sunglasses, “it looks like an awfully long walk to the temple over there.”

“Yang.”

Yang primed her gauntlets. “And here we are, at the top of a ravine, with nowhere to go but up.”

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Blake said, checking the ribbon on her blade, “you’d better not be.”

“Of course not,” Yang said, not even trying to feign ignorance in her voice. “That would be the absolute worst idea in the world.”

“Right.”

“Only a pair of absolute badass Huntresses would ever pull it off.”

Blake held her thumb out, measuring the distance between them and the Nevermore. “Naturally.”

Yang crouched low, angling her gauntlets against the ground. “But here’s the thing, Blake. I happen to know where two badass Huntresses are.”

“And where is that?” Blake asked, spooling ribbon in her left hand and angling her blade in her right.

“Up there.”

With that, Yang pushed off and fired, rocketing up into the sky.

Today was turning out to be a great day.

 

* * *

 **Know Your Enemy  
** _With Professor Port_

**Elite Grimm**

The Creatures of Grimm are as varied as there are stories about them, and that is not a coincidence. As aspiring Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your job – nay, your _duty_ – to understand any and all interactions you will have with Grimm on a regular basis.

New Grimm are spawned every day. The mechanism by which they appear is still unknown, though there are multiple sources that we _do_ know about and monitor. Please see Doctor Oobleck’s history classes for more about those hard-fought battles, by the valiant men, women, and nonbinary Huntsmen throughout the ages.

As Grimm kill, fight, and survive, they grow not only in experience but in stature. The type of creature they are informs the type of creature they become, and the oldest Grimm are the most dangerous by far. They learn, they adapt, and they evolve.

Some simply grow in size – the difference between a standard Nevermore and its Giant counterpart is by order of magnitude. Others, like the Ursa Major or the Alpha Beowolf, gain additional armor plating and dangerous spikes. And still other types change form entirely, gaining new abilities and posing a greater threat, such as the Piper King.

Remember this, nascent Huntsmen: there are few weapons more suited for combat than the ones you forge yourselves, but the greatest weapon of all is knowledge. To learn is to survive, students, and with enough preparation, you too can only become deadlier with time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things every parent should teach their daughters: How to change a tire, which groceries and household products are perfectly fine to get store-brand, how to decapitate eldritch horrors, and what to keep stocked under the sink at all times. You never know when you’ll need to unclog a drain.


	4. Brighter Than a Yellow Sun

The trek across the ravine was relatively uneventful, and Nora was slightly bored.

That was okay. Boring wasn’t necessarily a _bad_ thing, especially when it came to fighting monsters. Boring meant you weren’t fighting for your lives, wondering where the next meal was coming from, worrying about how long you could go without sleep. Boring was _safe._

It was just that it was somewhat _too_ boring for what they were supposed to be doing, and that was worrisome.

She glanced over at her partner. Ren was worried too, she could tell. There were the telltale signs that she’d picked up over the years – his hands were clenched in his long sleeves, his eyes kept darting around, watching for something that he wasn’t quite sure was there.

It might not be easily noticed for the rest of their classmates, but to Nora, Lie Ren was silently screaming his discomfort.

“I think I see the temple,” she said when they were safe across the ruined stone bridge. “Wanna race?”

“It would be best to get there faster,” Ren agreed, picking up the pace.

His eyes were locked on something circling overhead, and Nora glanced up to see what it was. She whistled her approval. “Thaaaat’s a big Nevermore.”

“We should secure the artifact before it approaches.”

“Last one there is a rotten egg!”

She peeled out in front, bounding forward with as much speed as she could muster. Her heart was pounding in her chest; the wind whipped past her face. These were the moments that Nora Valkyrie lived for.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, after all. Nora meant to take every shot she could.

They lost sight of the Nevermore for a bit as they passed through the treeline on the other side of the ravine, and it was nowhere to be found when they came to the next clearing.

“It appears we are the first,” said Ren, walking forward to the pillars in the center of the ruins.

The temple was impressive – or at least it had been, once. There were shattered remains of stained glass littering the ground, and crumbled sections of stone revealed what used to be domed chambers, high arches, and decorative columns. As it was, most of the walls had been torn away, either by bandits, Grimm, or the entropic nature of time itself.

Probably all three, Nora figured. These ruins had been around for a very, very long time.

In what used to be the central chamber, which was now about as enclosed as a rice field, there were twenty-four short pillars, each topped with some sort of object. Half of them were as black as night, arranged on the north side of the moss-covered inlaid marble floor. The other half were a shining gold, and Nora found herself drawn to them.

If pressed, she would answer “because they were shiny,” and honestly she wouldn’t be ashamed to admit that. Nora knew what she was about.

The artifacts were large, carefully polished chess pieces. Two of each type, from a King to a Pawn, the gold brushed to a brilliant shine. They were mirrored in obsidian on the other side.

“Hey, Ren!” she called out, grabbing the golden Rook. “I’m queen of the castle, I’m queen of the castle~!”

There was no answer. She whirled around, clutching her precious new statuette closely, to protect it from any danger. “Ren?”

Ren was watching the skies, his weapons out and held at the ready. _Oh, right._

She stowed the artifact in her bag and reached back to take hold of her grenade launcher. It was heavy on her back and heavier in her hands – it was made of Dust-infused titanium and love, filled with the finest fragmentation Dust grenades she could make by hand. These grenades were her own signature mix of shrapnel, fire and wind Dust, lithium chloride, and _zero fucking tolerance,_ which was as on brand for Nora Valkyrie as she could ever hope for.

“Hold or run?” she asked, making sure the weapon was primed.

Ren shook his head. “It might be best to wait for others, in case they need help.”

Nora glanced up to where he was staring. The Nevermore was back, and it was rapidly approaching the temple. She raised her weapon, prepared to fire—

 _That’s not right,_ she thought. “Ren?”

“I see it,” he responded, the StormFlowers raised but not firing. “It’s coming in too low.”

The Nevermore was approaching fast, but the angle was wrong for landing, and it was too low to be either a swooping attack or a feather burst. She prepared to fire anyway since whatever a Grimm was doing was bound to be violent and hateful, but the flashes of light gave her pause.

Those were bursts of fire Dust. There was someone fighting on top of the Nevermore.

Nora tracked its path for a second. The trajectory was going to take it past the temple, into the woods over… _there._

She started running. “Come on, they’ll need help.” She didn’t wait to see if Ren would follow; she knew he’d be right behind her. He always was.

Another flash grabbed her attention, and the Nevermore shrieked in pain – it was close enough for them to hear it. The creature started to list, rolling out of its current path, and crashing down into the ground well ahead of them. It skidded along the grass, plowing up a row of loose dirt as its inertia dragged it across the ground, crashing through pillars and knocking loose boulders out of the way as it careened to a stop, barely a foot from where Nora and Ren were currently standing.

There was one last flash, punctuated by the blast of a shotgun shell going off, and the Nevermore slackened, its head crashing down finally against the ground before it started to discorporate into black miasma.

Nora lowered her grenade launcher as two figures staggered out of the black mist. There was a girl, lithe and wary, dressed in black and white, holding a pair of wickedly sharp blades. The other was taller, broad-shouldered, and blonde, dressed in comfortable riding leather boots and a matching light-brown jacket.

Nora placed her weapon back in its sling across her back, glanced between the girls and the new oblong impact crater, and whistled appreciatively. “Welcome!”

The blonde girl grinned as she retracted her gauntlets into bright yellow bracers, and began massaging her shoulder. “Hey, we just flew in from Beacon,” she said, cheerfully, “and boy, are my arms tired.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Four  
Brighter Than a Yellow Sun**

* * *

 

If Ruby didn’t know any better, she’d swear that the forest was mocking her.

She and Weiss had been in a “tactical retreat” for longer than she’d have preferred, and they really should have reached the break in the treeline by now.

“Hang on,” she said, unfolding her scythe, “let me check something.”

“What are you checking?” Weiss hissed, her eyes darting around. “We need to move!”

“Just give me a second,” Ruby responded. She jumped up as high as she could, firing Crescent Rose into the ground to add the recoil to her leap, and pushed as hard as she could with her Aura to rocket up into the trees. She reached her apogee a few feet above the canopy and took the split second to scan her surroundings.

That was the sun, and that was Beacon Cliff, which meant that…

She started falling and twisted in mid-air to carve a hole in the nearest tree, using her blade to slow her fall.

“Did that help?” asked Weiss, ice dripping from her words.

“Tell you in a few minutes,” Ruby said. “I have a thought.”

They continued their retreat, but something was eating at the back of Ruby’s mind. What was it they were running _from?_ There was nothing nearby, no glowing red eyes, no growling in the wind.

Were they even going the right direction?

“Of course you have a thought,” Weiss said after a few minutes, hacking at a particularly obstructive patch of brush. “You’re the world’s most accomplished ten-year-old, I should have thought you’d want to weigh in on everything.”

“I’m fifteen,” Ruby protested.

“So you wheedled your way in two years early! That doesn’t mean you have those two years worth of experience!”

“I’m not—!” Ruby practically shouted, stopping herself before she lost her temper entirely. “Hold that thought, please.”

Before the heiress could react – and before she could say another vile thing at her, a guilty voice said in the back of her mind – Ruby rocketed herself back up above the trees to check their surroundings.

The hole she made in the canopy was still there, about five hundred feet back. Five hundred feet _the wrong direction._

“We’re being herded,” she said, landing back in front of Weiss.

Weiss narrowed her eyes, pale blue almost physically boring their way through Ruby’s head. She glanced up at the broken branches, then back at the way they had come.

“You’re sure,” said Weiss. It was not a question.

“Bet on my mother’s grave,” said Ruby solemnly.

Weiss took a breath; one sharp inhale, and exhaled slowly. When she opened her eyes next, they were calmer, more certain. “Alright. Truce for now, we’ll talk later.”

“I would love nothing more.”

As one, they turned towards the path they had been forging through the undergrowth. Ruby twirled Crescent Rose, gaining enough momentum to plant the scythe blade into the ground, providing a stable surface for her to peer down the scope.

She’d built her weapon under the supervision of two experienced Huntsmen, the two most prominent authoritative figures in her life. Dad had been cautious but supportive, acquiring the more difficult components from her designs in Signal Academy’s machine shop, and walking her through the process.

Uncle Qrow had been more aloof, as was his way. He’d said he was hanging back mostly to prevent any mishaps that tended to occur when he was around, which was his usual excuse, but he had done something far greater than watch: He’d lent her his own weapon. The scythe she modeled her fighting style off of.

Harbinger was very much Uncle Qrow’s personality, and they’d all agreed that Crescent Rose should reflect Ruby’s own proclivities. His weapon was a blade first and a shotgun last, whereas the most important part of Ruby’s weapon was the sniper rifle.

There was something incredibly soothing about taking a perch and finding a perfect shot. Elegant, in its own way, but no less deadly for it. As energetic and restless as she was around people, she lived for the moments where the world fell away and it was just her, the wind, and the snapshot of life at the end of her scope.

Her mind was clear. Her focus was sharper than an Aura-enhanced knife. In this moment, she could trace every thought through her mind, every movement of her body.

There was a weight pressing down on her mind. It had been there for a while. It was only now, with her senses honed and her reflexes pulled taut, that she could feel it. It surrounded them on three sides, urging them none-too-gently to the east. The highest concentration was coming from the west, the way they had been unknowingly forging through the woods.

She reached for a Dust magazine. Lightning, a type she didn’t use all that often, so she knew it would be full.

“You can blast an area, right?” she asked.

“How big do you need?” responded Weiss, unable to keep the smugness from her voice. Ruby ignored her tone and focused on the words.

“Don’t know. Probably big. When I give the signal, do it and run north.”

“Which way is that? If we’ve been intentionally turned around—”

Ruby pointed. “I’ll be right behind you. Ready?”

There was a whirring sound from Weiss’s weapon. She’d seen it earlier; a cylindrical dust chamber, similar to a six-shot revolving pistol.

“Ready.”

Ruby waited for the pressure to build up in the front of her mind. She could tell what it was, now that she knew what to look for. Something vile and alien, something _outside._ It felt like how Grimm smelled.

She held up three fingers, then slowly ticked them down.

Two. The patch of ground along the path was darker than the rest. Was that always like that? The shadows were stretching as the sun moved along the sky, but that couldn’t have happened that fast.

One. The pressure became unbearable, every nerve ending in her body screaming to run away.

She pulled the trigger.

There had been a discussion, back when Ruby was designing Crescent Rose, about the type of Dust ammunition that she’d need for the weapon. Standard rifle shells were more convenient to purchase, but for her purposes, they were less than ideal. Specifically, the increased mobility she enjoyed with her Gravity Dust was finicky enough without having to need multiple bandoliers of the bullets strapped to her at all times.

Instead, she purchased a personal Dust compressor, which took in the powdered form available at any shop – even ones that didn’t deal in ammunition – and filled a mold that Dad had helped her make at Signal. The result was almost solid blocks in the magazine casings she had custom-made for the rifle, with the type engraved on the outside in the polished red-painted metal.

The rifle sheared off a strip of Lightning Dust from the block, forced it through the chamber, and fired it at supersonic speeds, activating it as it passed through the barrel. A burst of electricity exited the gun, streaking out in one solid blast, centered around the fragmenting strip of Dust, keeping it in a coherent ball. The blast careened through the undergrowth, piercing the shadows pooling along the path, and connecting with _something_ on the other end.

Ruby could _see_ the impact, as the lightning scattered on contact, playing across the surface of something shadowy and solid in jumping arcs.

The shadows retracted, their illusions shattered, and when Weiss’s fireball landed a half second after Ruby’s shot did, it exploded across a mass of roiling black bodies, low against the ground, white and red masks glinting cruelly in the reflected light.

The illusion had shattered, but Ruby’s eyes found it hard to focus. The mass of bodies writhed as they shrank away from the flames, seeming to blend into each other and pass through. It wasn’t until the fireball dispersed that she could pick out the individual scorched bodies left behind, charred and crumbling as it dissolved the way that all Grimm did.

It was a Piper swarm. She’d never seen one in person, but she’d heard stories from her father when he’d had old Huntsman friends over for dinner.

A mass of rats, the same physical void-material that all Grimm were made of, with bone-white skeletal plating and skull masks, but they were not individual creatures. No, the swarm _itself_ was the Grimm, decentralized and flowing as pitch-black venom, each rat a simple part of the greater whole, seeking to overwhelm its prey and devour them whole.

The forest was _covered_ in the Piper swarm. On three sides, there wasn’t a single stretch of ground visible beneath them. The path to the east was clear, but there was something terrible there if the Pipers were herding them in that direction.

Ruby glanced at Weiss, who was frozen where she stood, eyes wide, arm outstretched in the completion of her attack.

“Blast and _run,_ ” Ruby yelled, as she fired shot after shot into the swarm to keep the creatures from swarming their position. “Weiss, you’re not running!”

“They’re _everywhere,_ ” Weiss whispered.

“So let’s not be here!” Ruby countered. She ejected the Lightning magazine and slammed home her Gravity block. “Burn me a hole!”

Weiss twirled her rapier in a practiced flourish, tracing a sigil in mid-air that hung in front of her, glowing white and shimmering with geometric perfection. She depressed the trigger on the hilt, letting red Dust flow upwards and coat the blade, which she ignited with a flash of her Aura.

“ _Move,_ ” Weiss shouted, swinging her blade horizontally.

Ruby leaped upwards, firing her rifle to add to the jump, and made it over the wave of flame that licked out from Weiss’s blade. The fire burned through the line of Pipers, causing the survivors to shriek in pain and scurry away.

Ruby landed, grabbed Weiss around the waist, fired Crescent Rose behind her, and _moved._

 

* * *

 

Jaune stared at his hand as if he was seeing it for the first time. Which, in some respects he was – it felt kind of tingly, like the nerves were all firing at once, but gently.

He knew what Aura was, from an academic standpoint. It was something that he’d thought was beyond him; if he didn’t have it through training, it may have skipped a generation. But Pyrrha…

He glanced over at his new teammate, scouting ahead with her rifle at the ready. Her armor glinted in the sunlight – brass over leather, with her bright red sash and plated boots – and her red hair cascading down her back.

She was far more athletic than most of the girls that Jaune had met. Her muscles weren’t as bulky as Ruby’s sister Yang, but they were toned and defined, tensed harder than steel.

With her on his team, she’d probably end up carrying him, both metaphorically and physically.

_For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee._

That’s what she said when she had unlocked his Aura, her voice measured and calm. The words had lulled him into what felt like a dream state, where he was there and not there at the same time. All that existed in the world was him, and Pyrrha’s voice. It was… weird, Jaune felt. Like drinking orange juice and brushing his teeth, but over his whole body.

The tingling died down, but it was still there if he paid attention to it, and before his very eyes, the cuts and scrapes on his hands had healed over, the scabs falling off to reveal fresh pink skin underneath.

He didn’t think he’d have an Aura. But here he was, with his own personal force field.

He felt like he’d taken his first step into a larger world.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Pyrrha said, hopping down from the large boulder she’d been crouched on.

“What do you mean, the wrong way? We’ve been going one direction the entire time.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” said Pyrrha, shaking her head. “The sun is on the wrong side, and I think I see the temple to our left.”

“Then why have we been going this way?” Jaune asked. At Pyrrha’s glare, he held up his hands in conciliation. “I’m not accusing you! I’m just thinking. We definitely were headed north before, but neither of us noticed being turned around.”

In unison, they turned back to the path they’d been making.

“...Pyrrha?” Jaune asked.

“Yes, Jaune?”

“It’s late morning, right?”

“Just about,” Pyrrha confirmed.

Jaune nodded thoughtfully. “Then why is the ground covered in shadow?”

Pyrrha raised her rifle and fired a bolt of orange light into the darkened path. It shimmered and… hissed?

The swarm of black rats boiled out of the illusion and raced towards them.

“ _Run!_ ”

They bolted, blades out, both of them swinging madly at the gnashing jaws of tiny Grimm to knock them away from their legs. They crashed through the line, breaking away.

“Ohgod they’re in my hair _they’re in my hair!_ ” Jaune squealed, batting at his head to knock Pipers away from him as they tried to bite through his armor.

They kept running. Jaune almost tripped over a fallen log and felt his armor lift and carry him back upright. He spared a glance over at Pyrrha, who was holding out her hand, focusing to steady him before pushing forward again.

Behind them, the squeals of angry Grimm followed.

“Where do we go?” Jaune asked, taking as long of a moment as he felt comfortable with to gauge his surroundings.

“There’s a river not far from here,” Pyrrha said. “It’s the wrong direction, but it’ll slow the Pipers down enough for us to lose them.”

“I’ll take anything at this point,” Jaune said, following after.

They crashed through the brush and into another clearing. The river Pyrrha mentioned was right where she’d said it would be, at least ten feet wide at the point they’d arrived at, with the water rushing swiftly downhill. The river, Jaune remembered, opened up into the ravine, ending at a waterfall, and the water was choppy and dangerous.

Pyrrha threw her shield at a nearby tree, pushing it with her Semblance to give it enough force to cut right into the trunk, sticking fast at an angle. She leaped up into the air, landing with both feet on the shield, and springboarded herself over the river in one bound. As Jaune watched, she thrust her hand out, drawing her shield back to her; when her feet touched down on the opposite bank, it was securely at the ready position on her wrist.

“Oh, well _I_ could have done _that,_ ” Jaune groused, but quietly. The chittering behind him grew louder, and he stopped complaining and ran full-tilt into the water.

It was _cold._

“Do you need help?” Pyrrha called from the other side.

“I’m fine!” Jaune called back, and surprisingly enough, he _was._ The water was cold, and the force of the river made him pick his way across excruciatingly slowly, but his armor was heavy enough to weigh him down, keeping him from being swept up in the current, and the biting cold wasn’t any more than a nuisance.

He stopped about halfway through, the water level reaching his waist, and turned around to see the Piper swarms approach the river. Most of them stopped, bunching up at the edge of the water, but a few clusters of rats tried throwing themselves out into the water to reach him. Fortunately for Jaune, they got caught up in the river’s flow and were washed downstream faster than they could swim.

He brought his thumbs to his ears and waggled his hands at them. “Nyah, can’t reach us!”

“Jaune, we need to move,” said Pyrrha from behind him, though he could tell that she was hiding the amusement in her voice.

“You’re right,” he said, and he made his way to the other side.

He whipped out his scroll and brought up a map of the forest. “There’s a cave nearby,” he said, pointing at the screen. “It’ll take us around the ravine and over to the other side, near the temple. If we can get away from the Grimm, we can double back around.”

“Let’s do it,” Pyrrha agreed.

They took a moment to watch the Grimm on the other side of the riverbank – chattering loudly as they kept trying to make their way across – and turned their backs, picking their way carefully towards the caves in the mountainside.

 

* * *

 

Yang checked and double checked her gauntlets. They had taken a beating in the descent, but that was what she loved about Ember Celica: the metal never warped, and the scuffs just added character.

She approached the plinths, arranged carefully in a circle, and inspected the chess pieces on top. “Hey, Blake!” she called out, selecting the golden Knight. “Want a horse?”

Blake just stared.

“Suit yourself,” Yang said, putting the artifact in her pouch. “Score one for Team Golden Pony.”

“We’re not calling ourselves that,” said Blake.

“We are _so_ calling ourselves that.”

Blake scowled and turned away, but Yang was able to see a quick flash of an amused grin before she did. _Success._

“I’m going to go see if the others are coming yet,” Yang said, making her way outside the temple. Well, what would have been the outside had the whole temple not been reduced to three pillars and a curved archway. It was more like she was just moving from the concave portion of the crumbling wall to the convex.

“What others are you looking for?” said Blake, looking up from checking her weapons.

“Well, I’d like to make sure Ruby’s okay.” Yang started poking around the runes on the outer wall. “She can take care of herself, but I still worry, you know?”

“...yeah,” Blake said, after a moment. “I can understand that.”

Yang knelt down and started brushing moss off the bottom of the wall. “Besides, I kind of want to see who she got partnered with. Depending on who it is, it’ll be _hilarious._ ”

She traced some of the runes. “Hey, come over here. Do you know what this says?”

Blake made her way over and knelt next to her. “These carvings? No. Why would you think I could?”

“Hey, I don’t know what you know, that’s why I asked.” Yang poked at a few of the symbols. “They look like some of the ruins in the museum downtown, but the language isn’t anything I’ve seen before.”

“There are ancient ruins all over the world, what’s so different about these?”

Yang took out her scroll and started snapping pictures. “This close to the city? There’d be _some_ kind of record. We’ve explored and translated things farther out than this.”

Blake was silent for a moment. “I didn’t take you for an academic type.”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “Why? Because I punch things? You gotta have harmony between your mind, your spirit, and your body if you want to be a Huntress. That’s what my dad always says.”

She stood up. “If you want, you can help me poke around the library to see if there’s anything like this in the school records. These woods all belonged to the Warrior King, he might have kept something around.”

Blake nodded. She looked like she wanted to say something, but a high-pitched _crack_ reverberated through the air.

In half a second, Yang’s entire thought process changed. She clenched her fists, hitting the pressure sensors in her fingerless gloves, unlocking the mechanism in her bracers to extend into her gauntlets.

“Yang?” Blake asked. She drew her blade as well, glancing between her and the forest where the noise had come from.

“I’d know that sound anywhere,” Yang said. She checked her Dust levels and started advancing. “Ruby’s in trouble.”

The universe had excellent timing. Just as she’d finished speaking those words, the treeline rustled, and a fast-moving blur erupted from the canopy. The streak was twisted around itself, corkscrewing through the air, half the bursting red rose petals that Yang was familiar with, and the other half an icy blue-white, trailing frost where it had once been.

The swirling colors broke apart, disgorging two flailing figures. Ruby and Weiss flew through the air, tumbling across the ground in a dizzy heap.

“Ruby!” Yang cried out. She ran to her sister. “Ruby, are you okay?”

“Watch… that first step…” Ruby groaned. “It’s a doozy.”

 

* * *

 

Ruby barely had time to catch her wind before a pair of strong arms wrapped around her. Her sister’s embrace was comforting in the “squeeze the life out of you” way, stopping shy of crushing her entirely. Which was… about how hugs from Yang always went, really.

Yang pulled her close, laughing in relief. “What the heck were you doing, you goof?”

“It’s—mmf, Yang, I can’t _breathe_ —it’s big and it’s bad and it’s coming our way!”

The vise-like grip slackened, and Ruby took a gulp of air that she desperately needed. “What’s coming our way?” Yang asked, moving her arms to a guard position.

“Remember Dad’s stories?” Ruby asked. She took a moment to check that Crescent Rose was still in her hands. Good, she hadn’t dropped it in the chaos.

 _Note to self:_ Practice _carrying people with your Semblance before doing that again, dummy._

“We’ve got two Gryphons riding a train?”

Ruby blinked. “What? No.”

“A Kraken with eight King Taijitu heads for arms?”

“No, there’s—”

“You went out hunting a Goliath in your pajamas, and how it got into your pajamas you’ll never—”

“Yang!”

The ground shook with heavy footfalls, and everyone’s heads turned to the forest. Ruby expanded Crescent Rose back to its full form, angling the barrel-blade to the treeline and readying herself.

_Crash._

Another impact. A few trees shook violently.

_Crash._

Another few trees bowed to some unseen pressure. Closer this time.

There was silence for a moment. Then—

“Somebody help us pleeeeeaaaaaaaase!”

Two more bodies flew out of the trees. One, a tall, athletic girl in bronze armor and her red hair whipping around her face in the wind. The other was a tall, lanky boy, white armor, blue jeans, and a messy mop of blond hair. Jaune.

“I don’t remember Dad having any stories about that,” Yang opined, raising her hand to block the sun out of her eyes as she tracked their trajectory.

Erupting from the forest, hot on the heels of the falling teenagers, was the largest Deathstalker that Ruby had ever seen. A giant demonic scorpion, black chitinous scales gleaming in the sunlight, it barrelled its way across the field towards them.

“Great!” said Yang cheerfully. “The gang’s all here. Now we can die together!”

Ruby swung her scythe behind her and set herself against the frame. “Not if I can help it,” she said, triggering the kickback and taking off at top speed.

She rushed at the Deathstalker, leaping into the air to swing the scythe blade at full force against it.

The Deathstalker set its legs against the ground, anchoring itself, and brought its massive claw to bear. Ruby tried to dodge, but she was already in the air, and the blade was too far over to take another shot to bounce her out of the way. She watched as the claw rose up, seemingly slow but with monumental force behind it. It struck her, heavy enough that she could see a flash of red against the bone-white of its armor plating, sending her careening back halfway to the temple itself.

She stood up. Tried to get her bearings. Winced as her Aura flickered over her body, visible as it tried to recharge itself.

The Deathstalker approached, not even trying to hurry. She was winded: easy prey. The others were far enough that they wouldn’t reach her in time. Ruby watched as it clacked its mandibles hungrily, the red and white armor plating glinting cruelly as it raised its stinger to attack. She closed her eyes and threw her arms up in a futile attempt to protect herself.

A white flash burned through her eyelids, and she steeled herself for nothingness.

In a fashion, nothingness came. She waited a moment, realizing that nothing had actually happened.

She opened her eyes.

The angry yellow stinger was inches from her face, unmoving. She glanced around it, following the curve of its tail to a massive ice wall, where the Deathstalker was currently trapped. The tail whipped back and forth, unable to move any further.

Before her, rapier outstretched, blue-white glyph shining in the air, Weiss Schnee stood triumphant. Her stance was powerful; one hand on her hip, her back to Ruby, her eyes never leaving the Grimm.

Weiss turned. “You. Are so. Childish.”

Ruby winced and lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not done.” Weiss raised her chin and glared imperiously. “You are brash, headstrong, and unaware of the danger you put yourself in.” The coldness in her ice-blue eyes went away, and her expression softened. “But you’re also brave, and caring, and I can clearly see that from our interactions. I know that I am… _difficult_ to be around sometimes, and that is something I am increasingly aware of.”

She extended a hand, both to help Ruby to her feet once more, but also in conciliation. Ruby accepted it, pulling herself to her feet.

“I’ll work on my issues if you’ll work on yours,” Weiss offered.

“Deal.”

They shook. Far more formal of an interaction than Ruby was comfortable with, but she could tell that Weiss was trying.

“Now, partner,” Weiss continued, turning towards the Deathstalker. It was still trying to break itself out of the ice. “What’s the plan?”

Ruby glanced at Jaune and his partner, who were pulling themselves together back at the temple.

“We don’t need to fight,” she said, surprising herself with her own words. She started heading towards the artifacts arranged on the columns.

“We don’t?” Yang asked as they approached.

“The task was to get an artifact and make it back to the cliff,” Ruby said. “We’re at the artifacts, and we’ve got enough numbers to protect each other on the way back. We don’t need to go searching for enemies that we don’t need to fight right now.”

She reached the columns, stepping up to a golden sculpture of a chess Knight. Beside her, Jaune stepped up and took hold of a golden Rook. They grinned at each other.

Ruby returned her weapon to its holster on her back. “Alright, Huntsmen,” she shouted, pumping her fist in a victorious cheer, “we’ve secured our objectives! Let’s move out for rendezvous and extraction!”

She ran ahead, stopping once she crested the first hill and started waving her companions forward. They were right behind her, heads held high, spirits clearly soaring. This was… not as scary as she’d thought, she realized. New people were just new people, and monsters were monsters, but she could handle monsters just fine. That’s what she was here for. As for the people, well, they were older, but they were kids just like her. Kids who were training to be Huntsmen, just like her.

This was Beacon, she realized. And for the first time, she finally felt like she belonged here.

 

* * *

 

“That’s it, then,” said Glynda, tapping the last of the team combinations into her scroll. “Pairs are accounted for, and team choices have been made. Was there anything else we needed?”

Professor Ozpin sipped at his cocoa, watching the action on his own screen. The cameras he’d hidden throughout the forest showed everything that had transpired, but he still wanted to wait until the last minute, just to see everything the students were going to deal with on the way back. “That’s just about everything,” he agreed. “We just need to wait until they return. What are your impressions?”

“The Arc boy has his work cut out for him,” Glynda said, tapping his file. “I know you aren’t concerned over the status of his transcripts, but Ms. Nikos can’t carry him forever.”

“I don’t believe she will,” Ozpin replied. “He’ll rise to the occasion, or they’ll move on without him. I just don’t think it will come to that.”

“As you say.”

Ozpin glanced out to the forest below. Something was off. The movements of Grimm weren’t fully monitored, but he usually had a good idea of what was near his school. The presence of Pipers was concerning; they hadn't been seen this close to the capital city in over a century.

He turned to the other observer who had joined them on the cliffside. “And your thoughts?”

“None of this should have to happen,” said Amber, her eyes gleaming under her hood. She was still dressed in a teacher’s uniform, from the previous night’s school assembly. “They’re not ready.”

“No,” Ozpin agreed sadly. “They’re not. But they have to be. You were attacked once, there’s nothing saying they won’t be back to finish the job.”

Amber crossed her arms. “I know. I _know._ I’m not saying that this isn’t necessary.”

Ozpin gestured with his mug, spreading his right arm wide. “I don’t like it either.”

Amber grimaced, turning her head away. “Alright. We’ll see how they handle the way back. I’ll make my decision then.”

 

* * *

 

There was a series of ruins that extended throughout the ravine. Multiple aqueducts spanned the distance between the higher southern cliffside and the valley below, and defunct water wheels marked the locations of centuries-old mechanisms, lost to the ravages of time.

The bridge itself was more or less sturdy. While portions of it did crumble into the river far below, the supports were still holding strong, and even the decaying portions were in structurally weak locations. While it was covered in moss and whatever creeping vines had managed to take hold across its length, the stone mass was solid and immobile, standing as a strong testament to the age it was built.

Unfortunately, it was also currently covered in a seething black mass. What looked like hundreds of beady red eyes stared at the prospective Huntsmen as they approached, waiting for their approach.

“Ohhhhh,” said Yang, drawing out the syllable deliberately. “You meant _that_ story.”

Jaune groaned. It was too much to hope for that the way back to Beacon Cliff would be uneventful. He’d hoped, but there if there was one takeaway from this entire excursion, it was that his whole plan, to learn to be a hero, like his father and grandfather before him? It was going to be harder than he’d thought.

He was surprised to find that he was more okay with that than he’d anticipated. Not to say this was going to be a _cakewalk_ or anything, but back home, it seemed a lot simpler.

Step one: Take Crocea Mors, the weapon of a well-documented hero.

Step two: Get to a Huntsman Academy.

Step three: Be a hero.

Learning that it was more complicated than that? He should have been discouraged. Dismayed, even. But no, talking to the other students, watching them fight…

“Jaune, _move._ ” Pyrrha grabbed the back of his hoodie and dragged him to the side. A bright yellow stinger plunged into the ground right where Jaune had been standing, gazing directly at his metaphorical navel, oblivious to his surroundings.

Right. Wax existential at a time when your existence was not in danger of suddenly ending.

The Deathstalker had apparently freed itself and was charging towards them.

A flash of green got Jaune’s attention. The quiet kid – Ren? – fired his submachine guns at the giant scorpion, distracting it and halting its advance.

“Nora,” Ren called, leaping out of the way of the stinger. “Push it back!”

“On it!” Nora pulled her weapon off her back and started firing grenades at the Grimm. They exploded on contact, peppering the Deathstalker with pink bursts of flame and smoke.

The girl with the big black bow on her head rushed forward, her blade folded into a sickle. She threw it at the Grimm, holding onto the black ribbon trailing from it, and yanked it back and forth, triggering the handgun embedded in the handle. The sickle darted back and forth across the chitinous armor, changing trajectory with every pull, drawing sparks as the blade struck again and again.

“Nothing’s getting through that,” Jaune said to himself. “What we need is to crack the shell.”

He glanced up at the ruins around them. There were the partial walls of old buildings, the remaining columns and archways of a village long-past. The Deathstalker itself was in the middle of what looked like a ruined town square, and columns surrounded the remains of the marble fountain that it just crashed a giant claw into, destroying what was left of it.

It was advancing, backing them up into the edge of the ravine.

“Can we knock that pillar down onto it?” Jaune asked, his eyes searching for anyone with the firepower to affect it.

Nora grinned. She shifted her grip on her grenade launcher and hit a switch that started its transformation. The wide-barrel magazine remained the same size, but the handle extended and unfolded underneath it, turning the entire contraption into a two-handed warhammer. Making a shout that was half war-cry, half maniacal cackling, she charged the plaza, twirling as she ran to build up momentum. She brought the hammer down to the ground, triggering an explosion in the grenade chamber to send her sailing higher, higher towards the top of the column, and brought herself around to strike the top of the pillar with all of her might. Another pink explosion marked the impact, and she sailed away to safety as the pillar came crashing down onto the Grimm.

Massive chunks of stone rained down upon the plaza, the majority of them falling heavily onto the Deathstalker. One chunk clipped the girl with the ribbon-blade and the big bow on her head, knocking her away, and Jaune gaped in shock as she fell over the edge of the cliff.

 

* * *

 

Ruby watched in horror as Blake fell into the ravine, but her fears subsided when she saw the girl toss her blade at the bridge, the recoil from the gunshot driving it securely into the rock. She held onto the ribbon, swinging herself around and back up onto the bridge itself, straight into the path of the oncoming Piper swarm.

There was something weird about the swarm, Ruby noted. It was clumping up together near the back, as if the rat-like Grimm were pushing something huge along with them. The lump was massive, at least the size of Dad’s truck, and it stopped just short of the bridge itself.

Blake swept a line of gunfire over the approaching swarm, slowing the rats down, but they overtook her anyway, crawling up her legs. At least, it would have been her legs, if she hadn’t shot backward suddenly, leaving a flickering afterimage to delay the swarm, and ran back at full speed to the “safe” end of the bridge.

Ruby and Yang started peppering the swarm with shots, laying down as much covering fire as possible. Weiss followed suit, conjuring multiple glyphs around her that fired beams of Dust energy down the bridge, freezing rats wherever they struck. Soon enough the swarm pulled back, clustering around whatever large object it had brought to the ravine.

Behind them, the other four held the line against the Deathstalker, keeping it from pressing against their flank. The crack of a hunting rifle echoed through the clearing, along with the dull bass thuds of Nora’s grenade launcher and Ren’s twin machine pistols.

“We can’t go around,” Ruby called out. “The only way out is through.”

“They’re tougher than they look,” Blake responded, as she reached the trio holding the bridge.

Yang ejected spent Dust shells from her gauntlets and slotted in new ones, pumping her fists to reload the chambers. “Then let’s hit ‘em with everything we’ve got.”

Ruby stared down the barrel of Crescent Rose, sending shot after shot into the seething black mass on the bridge. She’d swapped to her dwindling block of Fire Dust, and the bolts of energy burned bright against the Grimm backdrop, making it easy to trace where her shots were going. Every impact spread flame in a small burst, scattering the rats wherever the bolts struck.

Beside her, the other girls were doing the same, sending wave after wave of gunfire, Dust beams, and concussion missiles into the swarm.

“They’re retreating,” Weiss called out from her vantage point, and Ruby pulled her head back from her scope to see that the swarm was, in fact, retracting to the other side of the bridge. The rats pulled back from the massive object and gathered behind it.

Ruby went back to the scope to try to get a better look at it. It was the bone-white of Grimm armor plating, with the swirling red accents of their skull-like masks, but the plating seemed less mask-like and more like…

She frowned and darted across the clearing to get a better look. Less like a mask and more like a warped ribcage, protecting and enclosing a twisted black and red mass. It was knotted and tangled, pulsating like a heartbeat, and the swarm around it seemed to be pulling into it, knotting further.

Her heart sank. “That’s not a Piper swarm,” she called out.

The girls watched as the armored mass trembled, shooting out nine warped appendages, coalescing the void-black Grimm flesh and sprouting nine identical skull masks, rodent-like and topped with gnarled spikes. These new rats were joined at the tail, each quivering appendage stretching from the knotted mass between them.

Nine massive rats, each the size of a house, turned towards the prospective Huntsmen and opened their mouths in a shrill chorus.

“It’s a Piper King.”

 

* * *

 

The Deathstalker was resisting every attack, holding its ground against every push. Even the parts not covered by the white armor plating were tough enough to resist gunfire and blades, and the massive claws weighed down upon Jaune and Pyrrha’s shields every time they blocked an attack.

“This isn’t working,” Jaune said, parrying the stinger with his sword. The force of the blow sent a jolt through his arms, almost making him drop the blade, but he held fast.

Pyrrha twirled her own sword and extended the handle, turning it into a bronze javelin. She hit the trigger as she threw it, letting the burst of fire down the barrel rocket it into one of the glowing red eyes behind the mask. The Deathstalker shrieked in pain.

Ren took the opportunity to launch himself onto the handle of the spear, springboarding himself onto the tail, shooting the base of the stinger at point-blank range. The flashes of green ate into the joint, tearing into the muscle and sinew below.

The Deathstalker writhed, flinging Ren off its tail into one of the plaza’s pillars. His Aura shimmered on impact, shattering with the blow, and Ren slumped to the ground.

 _“Ren!”_ Nora screamed. She tried to rush past the Grimm, but it knocked her back with its claws and raised its tail for another strike.

Jaune saw the stinger wobble. It was barely hanging from the tail, joined only by scraps of flesh and chitin. “Pyrrha, the tail!” he called out.

Pyrrha looked up where he was pointing and nodded. She crouched into a half spin, throwing her shield directly at the tail. It struck right at the base, severing the massive gold stinger, and as she called her shield back to her hand, the point of the stinger crashed into the Deathstalker’s mask, piercing into the head itself and sticking out like a loose nail.

Nail. That was it. “Nora!” he called. “Drive it home!”

Nora’s expression changed from righteous fury to wicked resolve, and the smile on her face was nothing short of predatory.

“Give me a boost!” she called, leaping onto Pyrrha’s shield. Pyrrha braced herself against the ground, shoving upwards as Nora triggered a grenade, and the combination rocketed her up high into the sky. She twisted around at the apogee, twirling faster and faster as she fell down to the Deathstalker, adding to the momentum of her fall and striking the stinger _hard_ , driving it straight through the scorpion’s brain and through the carapace underneath.

The Deathstalker twitched and fell, sending Nora flying. She skidded across the cobblestones and rolled to her feet, running towards Ren, who was struggling to push himself up off the ground.

Pyrrha retrieved her lance and collapsed it back into a sword. She turned to Jaune. “Good work,” she said.

“That was all you guys,” Jaune protested.

Pyrrha’s eyes gleamed in amusement, and she beamed at him. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “We still need to get back.”

They turned in unison to the fight on the bridge.

 

* * *

 

The good news was that the Piper King wasn’t gaining any ground. The bad news was that neither were they.

Whenever it gained a moment’s respite, one of the nine giant rats would disperse into a Piper swarm and charge the bridge, only to be driven back by the girls’ combined gunfire. They’d then press the attack, scythes and swords and fists all, but the Pipers took every blow and then some. When they’d kill one rat, another would flank them and attack while the first one reformed from the cluster.

“There are too many of them,” said Weiss when they pulled back to the midpoint of the bridge. “We’re not making a dent.”

Ruby peered down her scope, watching as Blake made another attack run on the Piper King. Blake’s assaults were the most successful by far; her afterimages took the retaliatory strikes while the girl herself darted back and forth, landing as many blows as she could before she had to retreat.

“It’s protecting the heart,” Ruby noted, watching the angles of attack. “That’s where we’ll do the most damage.”

“How are we supposed to do that when the rats are overwhelming us?”

Ruby lowered her scythe. “Yang.”

Her sister looked up. “What’s the plan, Ruby?”

“Remember Uncle Qrow’s snow fort?”

Yang’s face scrunched up in thought. “You mean when…” Comprehension dawned, and Yang slammed her fists together excitedly. “Alright, let’s do that.”

“Snow fort?” Weiss asked incredulously. “What does a snow fort have to do with anything?”

“It’s a Xiao Long one-two combo,” Yang said, explaining absolutely nothing. “Prepare to be amazed.”

Ruby nodded. She waited until Blake had made it back to the rest of them before explaining any further. “Guys, I have a plan.”

 

* * *

 

Weiss and Blake rushed the Grimm, keeping it occupied. Blake’s shadow clones held the rats’ attention, while Weiss rushed up behind and started freezing them in place. When the Pipers were immobilized, they retreated.

Yang was energized from the combat. Not just from adrenaline – although that was certainly a factor there too – but she’d taken a few good hits from the rats’ assault, and her Aura was crackling with untapped potential. She was ready to do some damage.

“On my mark!” Ruby called.

Blake tossed Yang her sickle, holding onto the other end of the ribbon. They took opposite ends of the bridge, each securing themselves against a stone pillar.

Ruby hopped into the air, landing the flat of her scythe against the ribbon and stepping carefully onto the small platform she’d built into the blade.

Weiss conjured a glyph behind the ribbon and, with a gesture, turned it black. Ruby and her scythe were pulled into the glyph, stretching the ribbon as far as it could go. This was an important part of the plan; the ribbon was capable of supporting Blake’s weight, and she was confident about the upper limits it could handle.

“Of course you’d think of something this unconventional,” Weiss noted as she aimed Ruby towards the Piper King, which was even now starting to break loose of its frozen restraints.

“Think you can make the shot?” Ruby countered.

Yang felt a swell of pride. Her baby sister, already killing monsters, was now a master of battlefield banter. She had nothing left to teach her.

“Hmpf, _can_ I.”

“... _can_ you?”

“Of course I can!”

Weiss released the glyph, and Ruby rocketed out across the bridge. The steady report of her scythe firing again and again reverberated through the ravine, and soon she’d picked up enough speed to be nothing but a blur of red, streaking through the air.

Halfway through, she started spinning in mid-air, turning into a whirling corkscrew of rose petals and blades.

 _“My scythe is the only blade big enough to take out all the rats at once,”_ she’d said when she was explaining her plan. _“The only problem is that I’m not strong enough to cut through all nine in one go. I need more force, which means I need more speed. Weiss, Blake, that’s where you come in.”_

People liked to joke that the laws of physics looked the other way when Huntsmen were involved, but Yang knew it was the furthest thing from the truth. Ruby needed power, and she didn’t have a lot of mass, so she gained the rest from _massive acceleration._

It took her three spins to push through the Piper’s location. The first severed all nine heads at once. The second severed their tails from the base. The third scraped the scythe blade across the armored cluster, creating an awful noise that the girls could hear all the way across the bridge. It was ten times louder than nails across a chalkboard, and about six hundred times more physically repulsive.

Ruby darted out of the way, and Yang could see that Crescent Rose hadn’t cut all that deeply into the armor plating, but it _had_ left a mark. A deep score in the cluster.

A target.

When Ruby bounded away from the Piper, it was already starting to regenerate the rats. Black flesh boiled out of the cluster, spreading out nine different directions.

But Yang was already on her way.

Uncle Qrow’s travels made it hard for him to hold down a teaching job at Signal, but every time he came back to their house in Patch, he made a point to give his nieces a lesson or two in unconventional combat. Sometimes, like the one last winter, the lessons were a bit more obscure.

He’d built a snow fort in the backyard, with crenellations, cannons, and little tiny snowmen to guard the battlements. They’d made a day of it, with Ruby and Yang contributing as much as they could to the design. Then he’d asked them to knock it down.

As with everything that Qrow Branwen taught them, it wasn’t that simple. He’d gotten in the way of every attempt. Every time one of the girls had approached the fort, he’d grabbed them and tossed them away into a loose snowbank.

After a while, they’d hatched a plan. Ruby went for Qrow directly, tackling him in the biggest hug she could, trapping his arms and halting his movement, while Yang leaped up and obliterated the castle in one punch.

Yang grinned, staring down at the scattered mass of Piper flesh, still trying to reform from Ruby’s assault. She’d gone for the arms, and now it was up to Yang to knock it down.

Immediately after Ruby had left the slingshot, Weiss had set up another series of glyphs, setting up for the secondary attack. Yang had taken Ruby’s place in the middle of the bridge, shooting through the series of acceleration glyphs that springboarded her high into the air, in a perfect arc for maximum height and damage.

At the top of the arc, right at the moment of weightlessness where the pull of gravity had yet to reverse her movement, she fired her gauntlets, pushing her forward towards the armored mass at an even greater speed. The energy built up from her Semblance crackled around her, her Aura igniting from the force of it, and a Yang-shaped meteor slammed down upon the Piper King’s already damaged heart, her fist leading the charge with all the fury of a vengeful god.

It sounded like a mountain being broken in half. Cracks radiated out from the point of impact, faster and faster, until it shattered inwards, shredding the tangled mass from the burning shrapnel of its own armor. The entire Grimm shuddered as it died, evaporating into nothingness until all that remained was the still-smoking form of Yang, crouched into a three-point landing at the bottom of a shallow crater.

She stood. She caught her breath. And she toppled over as her sister crashed into her at top speed, crushing her in a tiny red hug.

 

* * *

 

Amber closed her scroll and sighed. “Alright, you’ve convinced me. I’ll take them on.”

“Splendid,” said Ozpin. He twirled his cane idly. “Please let me know what you’ll need, you’ll have the run of the school and any resources you require.”

“Most of the teachers have been briefed on your cover story,” Glynda added. “But please keep any in-depth discussions to the ones you’ve met personally so far. We don’t want to—”

“Don’t want to worry anyone,” Amber interrupted. “I know. I just…”

She sighed and started walking back to the school. “I just wish that none of this was necessary. I hope it never comes to it.”

The other two were silent, and Amber realized she was going to be making the walk back alone. It suited her needs, she didn’t need to be there when the students showed up.

That was why she almost missed it when Ozpin replied. It was almost too quiet for her to hear, but she still heard every word as clearly as if she’d still been standing next to him.

“On that, we agree.”

 

* * *

**World of Remnant  
The Emerald Forest**

South of the Kingdom of Vale, the Emerald Forest stretches along the northern tip of Sanus. It has historically been known as The King’s Forest, often closed to the public as the King’s own private hunting grounds. Some previous rulers allowed civilians in their hunting parties, while others kept the Grimm Hunts to a privileged few, but regardless of the current reigning monarch, it was forbidden to enter without the King or Queen’s personal consent.

Those who trespassed were never prosecuted, and the families therein were never condemned. The prospective hunters were often never seen again, though every year the official hunting party discovered the remains of some of the poor fools who tried. If the bodies could be identified, the families were contacted and compensated for their loss.

Since the dissolution of the monarchy and the establishment of Beacon Academy, ownership of the Emerald Forest passed to the current headmaster, who continued the practice of only letting officially sanctioned hunting parties through. These were always held on the same days as the historic Grimm Hunts and were soon adapted into the Initiation Ceremony for the new class of Huntsman Trainees.

Even so, every year, the headmaster sends formal apologies and compensation to the families of any independent civilians who unfortunately have chosen the wrong method of proving their worth, as and when their remains are eventually discovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a more classical depiction of a rat king, read The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. For a slightly more palatable version, check out Hilda on Netflix. To never sleep again, try Wikipedia or Google. 
> 
> I’m actually sorry for this.


	5. Getting To Know You

In the evening immediately following the Initiation, Beacon held the designation of teams. Students had enough time to clean up, stow their weapons, and head to the open-air auditorium, where they had previously been welcomed the day before.

This time, however, the entire student body was there. Everyone else’s first day was today – they had arrived while the Initiation was taking place, and the seats were full of upperclassmen cheering on the new Huntsman teams that made it through.

For as many first-year students had been at orientation, however, not nearly as many had made it through to the night’s assembly. Yang hadn’t _heard_ anyone had died, so there must have been quite a few teenagers that were shuffled back to Vale with their tails between their legs and a request to try again next year.

_“—will be known as Team CRDL, led by Cardin Winchester.”_

Maybe literal tails for some of the faunus, Yang realized. Was that racist? That was probably an expression she’d need to phase out of her everyday speech if that was the case.

_“Saffron Forrester, Ambrose Sinclair—”_

“You know,” Yang whispered, “it’s awfully convenient that the students that get arranged into teams just happen to have the right initials to fit the color theme that Ozpin was talking about.”

“Don’t interrupt!” hissed Weiss, ducking her head before any of the teachers noticed that she was nearby.

“No, I just mean that it would put them in a bind in case there was someone named Xanadu, or if there just wasn’t a combination that would work.”

“I think they’d put the family names into consideration if it came down to it,” Blake offered. “Open up the choices a bit.”

_“—Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren. For retrieving the White Rook, you will be known as Team JNPR—”_

“There you go,” Blake said, nodding her head. “Family name.”

Yang waved dismissively. “I’m just saying, there are a lot more fun combinations if you look outside the visible spectrum. I mean, there are a lot of fun four-letter words to choose from.”

“Yang…” Ruby said, tugging on Yang’s sleeve.

“Like, you get a Fiona, an Umbra—”

“Yang!” Ruby said, as close to shouting in a whisper as she could. “They’re calling us!”

_“—Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long.”_

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang all hurried to the stage, to stand before Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch. The headmaster beamed at them, hitting a button on his scroll. The screen above switched to the school application photos of the four of them, with their initials displayed prominently below.

“For your efforts in retrieving the White Knight, the four of you will be known as Team RWBY,” said Ozpin, inclining his head towards the smallest member of the crew, “led by Ruby Rose.”

“Wait, me?” exclaimed Ruby, her eyes wide with confusion and sudden terror.

Ozpin leaned forwards, away from the microphone. “I know it’s not the four-letter word you were hoping for, Miss Xiao Long, but I do think you’ll like it nonetheless.”

Yang suddenly empathized with Ruby’s stage fright. If a Nevermore could swoop down and gobble her up in this moment, she would not complain in the slightest.

“I have _very_ good hearing,” Ozpin continued, giving Yang a brief wink. He stepped back to the microphone, and Professor Goodwitch moved up to hustle them off the stage.

 

* * *

 **Chapter Five** **  
** **Getting To Know You**

* * *

 

It was late evening by the time Orientation finished, and Ruby’s team was exhausted. Some of the other students had gone exploring the grounds or went in search of a midnight snack, but after a long day of fighting monsters, Ruby wanted nothing more than to collapse into a nice soft bed. The other girls agreed, so off they went in search of the dorms.

“Why in the world,” exclaimed Weiss, turning a map back and forth in front of her face, “would they put the dorms that far away from the lecture halls?”

“It’s not so far of a walk, Princess,” Yang commented. She plucked the map from out of Weiss’s hands, to the heiress’s spluttering protests. “A little walk now and then would be good for you.”

“I don’t know _what_ you’re implying, but I have ranked in the top percentile in all of my physical examinations and performance reviews.”

“I’m saying you haven’t got a lick of muscle on you,” Yang said, tapping her own biceps to punctuate her statement. “Stick with me, Schnee, we’ll get you the kind of thighs that can crush a Beowolf’s head.”

“Not everyone’s as brutish as you, Xiao Long. _Some_ of us have agility and technique.”

“Hey, I haven’t found a problem I couldn’t punch.”

Ruby stifled a laugh and nabbed the map from her sister while she was distracted. Someone had to lead this merry band of misfits, after all. Might as well start now.

“...that can’t have worked for everything,” Blake said, quietly. She hadn’t spoken since the forest, opting instead to stick to the back and observe, but her amber eyes glinted in the soft light of the street lamps, wide with incredulity.

“Ev–’ry-thing,” Yang repeated. She jabbed the air a few times in front of her. “Sometimes you punch a problem and it becomes an all _new_ problem, but that’s something else altogether.”

“How did you even get _accepted_ to Beacon?” Weiss asked, dumbfounded.

“Yang is a model student and graduated top of her class,” Ruby said, distractedly. She was still trying to find Jinjur Hall on the map. Weiss was right, they really _did_ put it far from the castle. “She only punches mobsters.”

There was a moment of silence while the girls processed this.

“You mean she punches monsters?” Blake ventured.

“Those too.”

Yang crossed her arms in a huff. “Great, Ruby. Give away _all_ my secrets, why don’t you?”

“When we were little, we’d play The Girl in the Tower, and you’d always—”

_“Ruby, I was being sarcastic!”_

Ruby lowered the map and grinned at her sister. “You were right, Yang! Going to Beacon together is going to be a _lot of fun._ ” She darted away to avoid the impending noogie.

Weiss and Blake glanced at each other.

“Are they always going to be like this?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m an only child.”

 

* * *

 

The remainder of the trip to Jinjur Hall was uneventful, and the girls found their way up to their room without further incident.

Blake dropped her bags onto the ground and sighed with relief. To say that it had been a long day would be a massive understatement, and she’d had some ridiculously long days in the past. Fighting for her life, looking out for a small group of people for the duration, avoiding or slaying the occasional Grimm...

Well, when she put it like that, it was actually kind of a normal Tuesday for her. For that matter, “a mission to retrieve an object of interest in hostile territory” felt a lot more like work than school.

“Look at this! Whoever handled my luggage must have knocked it into every single wall in the kingdom. They’d better hope nothing was damaged.”

Blake stared. Yup. Some things were _exactly_ what she’d come to expect.

Around her, the other girls were settling in for the night, picking beds, dropping off personal items, and laying out clothes for the next day.

“You know, there are a lot of different kids here,” Ruby was saying. “Did you see the upperclassmen in the hallways? There are people from all over the world!”

“Beacon accepts students from all the kingdoms,” Yang agreed. “I mean, Weiss, you’re from Atlas, right?”

“Born and raised,” Weiss confirmed. “The student body here is certainly more… _diverse_ , than I’m familiar with. Not that that’s a bad thing,” she said, catching herself. “I just don’t see too many faunus students where I’m from.”

 _Oh, we’re doing_ this _now._ Blake’s ears twitched in irritation. She realized what had happened in an instant and glanced around hurriedly.

Thankfully, nobody seemed to have noticed. “There were a few in Patch,” Yang said. “There was a family down the road, their kids went to my school. Nice people.”

Ruby snapped her fingers. “Oh, that reminds me! I promised Heather that I’d write when I got here, I should do that.” She rummaged through her backpack, pulled out a notebook, and started digging around for a pen.

“What about you?” Weiss turned to Blake.

“What?”

“Were there a lot of faunus where you grew up?”

She wasn’t entirely certain how to answer that. “Um, here and there?”

“And where was that, exactly?”

Blake stiffened. “Why do you need to know?”

“I am your teammate,” Weiss responded, putting her hand on her hip imperiously. “I am engaging in team-bonding exercises, getting to know you all. It’s important.”

“Well, can we do that another time that isn’t pushing midnight?” Blake countered, seizing on the first excuse that popped into her head. “We’ve got classes in the morning, and honestly, if none of you are going to take a shower right now, then I’m going to.”

Weiss sputtered indignantly as Blake pushed past her, shoving things hurriedly into a small bag and rushing out of the room.

 

* * *

 

“Of all the nerve!” Weiss plopped down unceremoniously on her bed, her fists clenched in unjustified fury. “I was trying to be _friendly,_ why couldn’t she see that?”

Ruby looked up from her letter home. “Give it some time,” she said, waving her hand in what she hoped was a conciliatory gesture. “We all had a lot thrown at us all at once today, and only some of that was Grimm.”

“Yeah,” Yang added, “you can’t rush friendship. If you just barge in and try to be best buds with someone, you’ll end up pushing them further away.”

“Also we did that last night,” Ruby finished. “It didn’t work out so well.”

“Nope!”

“Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying,” said Weiss.

“Actually you really can—”

Ruby threw a pillow at her sister. _“Not. Helping.”_

She glanced back at Weiss, who was still fuming. “Look, I know you mean well, and I’m sure Blake does too, but give her time, okay? We’ve got four years together, that’s plenty of time to get to know each other. It doesn’t all have to be at once.”

Weiss sighed. “This goes against everything that I’ve been taught, you know. You have to be firm and direct, that’s the only way to get the respect of your business deals.” Her voice took on the cadence of a lecture, one that she’d probably heard multiple times, based on the measured tone and the way she shook her finger when she talked. “If your clients don’t respect you, neither will the shareholders, and you’ll be left with nothing.”

“You’re not a company, Weiss,” Ruby pointed out helpfully. “And neither is Blake.”

“Yeah, you can’t run friends like a business,” added Yang. “I’m sure there are some similarities, but in the end, people are their own thing.”

“I know that,” Weiss protested, but quietly. “I mean. I thought I did.”

Ruby gave her best smile. “Well, nobody’s perfect at knowing how to people their first try.”

“Except me!”

“Except Yang,” Ruby amended. “Just slow down on Business Weiss and push forward on Shiny Happy Friendly Weiss.”

“How do you know there is such a person?” Weiss said with a huff.

“I don’t! It’ll be an adventure we can go on together.”

“Hm.”

They all fell silent, busying themselves with getting ready for bed. Weiss kept her face turned away, but Ruby could tell there was a smile on her face. It might have been small, and she may have been trying to hide it, but it was there.

 

* * *

 

Her ears chafed. Tied up with ribbon, pulled and held into an awkward shape all day, with no room to move, no room to breathe. Every night they were sore, and every morning she did it all over again.

Hot showers helped. Not with the chafing – it made it hurt worse – but it helped her get through it. Reminded her why, focused her resolve.

There was a Schnee. There was a Schnee on her _team_ and she couldn’t do a godsdamned thing about it. Walking around, throwing her weight around, trying to take control of every conversation and every situation…

Blake thought she could handle it. She’d _have to_ handle it. She’d signed up for this. Four years, become a full-fledged Huntress, then she’d have the power to fix things. Physically she’d be stronger, more adept, and with the political contacts and the freedom to move between Kingdoms. Maybe then, she’d be able to make some real change. Talk people around. Put wheels into motion.

Maybe then, she’d be able to go home and face what she’d done.

She’d spoken to her parents since leaving, of course. Letters had been exchanged, messages had been left, even real-time voice comms happened from time to time. It was always carefully polite, each side approaching with the delicate handling of someone who knows that any sudden moves will send the other party scurrying away.

(No face to face – Menagerie certainly didn’t have its own CCT tower, and the relay stations on the continent were as utilitarian as anything else provided from the mainland. As with everything else, they’d made do. Blake was sometimes very glad of this.)

The water in the showers was clean, filtered. Sterile. Didn’t even have the barely-there scent of the Dust in the boilers. It was refreshing, if somewhat painfully hot, and it helped her push the regrets down at least one more day.

Things had been bad, but that was then. Here and now, she was at Beacon. She was a Huntress. She’d turn it around, by force if she had to, and she’d make things right.

So what if there was a Schnee on her team? She’d deal. She’d dealt with worse. If the heiress needed to feel superior to her teammates, that was her problem, not Blake’s. Either Weiss would grow out of it, or she wouldn’t.

The door to the bathroom opened, and suddenly Blake was no longer alone. She fought down a spike of panic, telling herself that this was going to happen all the time, that was why she’d taken her clothes into the stall with her. Communal showers had the shelf for her bag, away from the stream of water, and she’d invested in water-resistant bags for the things that she minded getting wet accidentally.

_You prepared for this, Blake. This is fine. Whoever came in can’t see into the stall, and you’ll be dressed and walk out like anyone else._

Logic. That’s what would fight anxiety. Cold, reasonable logic that even her terrified, lying brain couldn’t argue with.

_...what if she has a Semblance that can see through showers?_

Blake fought down that errant thought as well. It was not helping. She shut off the water and started drying herself off.

About halfway through the ordeal of getting dressed in a cramped space (without dropping any of her clothes onto the wet tile of the shower floor), she noticed that the other occupant of the bathroom was humming softly to herself. She’d actually been doing so since she’d walked in, but Blake was too busy suppressing her panic to pay attention. Now that she felt marginally safer, she recognized the tune.

_(So heed the lesson granted / that never shall we hide / the faces of our martyrs / the color of our pride…)_

She finished getting dressed, making sure that her bow was secure on her head before she opened the stall door.

There was only one other person in the bathroom – the girl who had been humming. She was standing at the row of sinks, brushing her teeth while she hummed, her small yellow basket of toiletries on the counter beside her. She hadn’t yet changed for bed, still wearing the white blouse and red pleated skirt of Beacon’s school uniform, missing only the black jacket with gold trim that Blake had seen the other students in the auditorium wearing. Her hair cascaded down her back, simple and straightened, in a warm light brown shade with hints of auburn highlights. She was roughly the same height as Blake, too – or at least, would be if you didn’t count the long rabbit ears poking through her hair, one of them folded lazily to the side.

The girl glanced over in the mirror as Blake approached the sinks, her own bag in hand. She gave a half-wave as she finished brushing her teeth, the song stopping mid-verse.

Blake pulled out her own toothbrush. “...when family surrounds you,” she sang softly, picking up where the girl had left off, “then hope is there to stay…”

The girl spat out the remains of her toothpaste and wiped her mouth. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was humming. Was it bothering you?”

“No, not at all. I just haven’t heard that song in a long time.”

The girl started rinsing her toothbrush. “It’s a nice song. I mean, it’s not a nice song, it’s about war and death and all sorts of violent things, but I think the message is important and the melody is nice.”

“Red In Tooth And Claw,” Blake confirmed. “My father used to sing it to me when I was a little girl.”

The girl finished putting her things away, nodding in agreement. “I’m Velvet,” she said. “You’re one of the new first-years, right?”

“Blake.” They nodded at each other, as shaking hands in greeting was slightly too awkward to do in a public bathroom. “Is it always this hectic?”

“Well, I’d say no,” Velvet said, her tone apologetic, “but with this many Huntsmen and Huntresses this close together, things tend to happen. And it’s always harder for girls like us.”

Blake stopped herself from checking her bow. “What do you mean?” she asked, carefully.

Velvet smiled knowingly. “It’s okay, I’m not going to out you. I used to try to hide, too, I know how important it can be to pass for human.” She started rummaging around in her basket. “Your bow twitches, by the way. I saw it in the team placement ceremony.”

Well, that was just great. First whole day and she’d already screwed it up. “Is it that obvious?” Blake asked, trying to keep the whine out of her voice.

“Only if you’re looking for it, and trust me, not a lot of people know what to look for even if they’re trying.” She found a small ceramic jar and pulled it out triumphantly. “Here it is. Take it, you probably need it more than me.”

Blake took the jar and glanced at the label. ‘Soothing cream for sensitive ears.’ She looked up at Velvet, the question already on her lips.

“Like I said,” Velvet interrupted. “I used to try to hide too.” She laid her ears flat against her head and, with her hands, pulled them into her hair in a low-slung ponytail. The soft cartilage blended in with the rest of her hair, almost but not entirely hiding the fact that they were ears. “I used to go through two jars a month, tying these things back like this.”

“Surely people noticed,” Blake said.

“Humans aren’t all that great at seeing what’s in front of them sometimes,” Velvet responded. “So I wouldn’t worry about anyone noticing your ears, either. But try that, it really does help with the chafing. Eventually I just decided I’d be happier not bothering, so I stopped.”

Blake scoffed. “I don’t believe that people just don’t care.”

“Oh, I didn’t say people didn’t care,” Velvet said. “Just that it didn’t matter to me if they did. There are racists and bullies all over, even here.”

Blake nodded. She put the cream into her bag. “Thank you.”

“No worries! Pay it forward, yeah? Us faunus have to stick together.”

“Trust me, I’m right there with you,” said Blake.

They both finished up in silence, Velvet straightening her hair and moving to the showers. Blake finished brushing her teeth and started for the door.

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “What changed?” she asked, turning back.

Velvet paused on her way into a shower stall, her basket dangling off her arm. “I’m sorry?”

“When you decided to stop hiding,” Blake clarified. “What changed?”

“I found people who liked being around me for me,” said Velvet. “They didn’t care what I was, so long as I was happy, and they helped me be happy with myself.”

“Does that always work?”

Velvet shrugged. “You’re the only one who can say what you need. One way’s not more right than another, just what’s right for you.” She set her basket down on the shelf in the shower. “If you need anything, come find me, okay?”

Blake hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

The door clicked open, and Weiss looked up to see Blake there, dressed for the evening, her shower bag in one hand and her scroll in the other.

Ruby’s head wheeled around. “Yang! Blake is back! I think we should go take our showers now.”

“I’ll take one in the morning,” Yang said from underneath her pillow. “Gon’ sleep now.”

“No I really think we should go take a shower now while Blake and Weiss are here,” Ruby said, her voice achieving the frantic high-pitched squeal of someone who was on the verge of lying very badly. She grabbed Yang’s arm and dragged her out of bed, pulling her out into the hallway.

Weiss stared at Blake, who was still standing there in the doorway, watching her. Blake’s expression was unreadable, and Weiss fought back an instinctive need to draw away. Father’s face looked like that right after someone mentioned one of the many sensitive topics that the household knew to avoid around him: the Faunus Rights protests, the whispers of anti-trust legislation approaching the Atlas Council, anytime someone mentioned Winter…

She steeled herself. She was Weiss Schnee, she would not be intimidated by expressions. She would speak her mind and make her position perfectly clear.

“Blake, I—”

_“Yang no I don’t need you to braid my hair this isn’t the time—”_

Blake shut the door behind her. The muffled protests could be heard echoing down the hallway.

“Thank you,” said Weiss. She sat up straight on her bed, smoothing out her nightgown. “Where was I? Oh, right. Blake Belladonna, I genuinely apologise for any offense—”

“Don’t.”

Weiss blinked, her train of thought well and truly derailed by this. “I… what?”

Blake came and sat down on the one remaining bed. She put her bag on the floor, next to her other suitcase. It was the smallest suitcase of any of the four girls, Weiss noted. Of all of them, Blake had come with the least amount of personal items.

“I don’t know how you treat people up in Atlas,” Blake said, turning her amber eyes back to meet Weiss’s questioning gaze, “but you don’t need to pretend this is a boardroom meeting. I’m not a business partner, or a copyroom auctioneer, or anything else. I’m your teammate, and I’m a person. Just speak plainly.”

Weiss blinked. “Copyroom auctioneer?”

“I don’t know what you people do in office buildings.”

“Oh. Well, we don’t have auction—not the point. Right.”

They sat quietly.

“...I don’t have peers,” Weiss said eventually, breaking the silence. “I had tutors, and houseguests, and my father’s business associates. I had my sister until she went to work for Atlas. And my brother, but he had his own schedule.” She waved a hand at the rest of the room. “This is the closest thing to public school that I’ve ever had.”

“What’s your point?” Blake asked. The question was rough, but the words themselves were soft, untempered by emotion. It was not an accusation, it was a request.

“My point is, I don’t know how to…” She trailed off, waving her hand vaguely in the air. “...people.”

“You don’t know how to _people._ ”

“I know business. I know how to perform.” Weiss raised her hand unconsciously in the air, holding up an imaginary glass for a toast. “I know how to be the good daughter in public. I know etiquette, not social skills. So, I’m sorry if I’m coming off too strong. I don’t know where the line is supposed to be. It’s not where I was taught it was.”

Blake lowered her head, her gaze locked on a fixed point on the floor. “I can understand that.”

“You can?”

“I didn’t think so, but yeah, I can.” She looked back up. “Look. I don’t really… _people,_ either. It’s not something I ever needed to do, and I don’t…”

She sighed. “I’ll try. But please don’t push, okay? I don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone about myself.”

“We’re supposed to be a team, Blake.”

“I know. Just. Give me time, okay?”

Weiss pretended to think it over. “Well, alright. On one condition.”

Blake bristled. “What?”

“I’m trying to figure out what’s appropriate in this sort of setting, and you’re standoffish as heck. So I propose a truce. You have patience for me, with my…” She waved her hands again, trying to find the words.

“Ostentatious blundering?” Blake supplied, helpfully.

“My _social missteps and confusion,_ ” Weiss finished, pretending not to hear, “and I’ll work with your stoicism.”

“...okay.”

Weiss held out her hand, in traditional Atlesian negotiation style. Blake stared at it as if it would grow fangs and attack, but she reached out and clasped it.

“I’m not from a kingdom,” Blake said.

“What?”

“You asked where I was from. I grew up outside the kingdoms, down south. We moved around a lot, mostly for my father’s work, so I never really got to know anyone that didn’t work for him.”

“Oh,” Weiss said. “I guess we’re not all that different, then.”

“...I guess not,” Blake admitted, the faintest tone of grudging acceptance in her voice. “Not as much as I thought.”

A noise outside grabbed both girls’ attention. Something scuffling at the door. Blake stood up and opened it.

Ruby and Yang spilled into the room, tripping over each other as they fell.

“Um,” Blake said, her form blurring as Ruby fell into her. Blake’s afterimage faded, her real body sidestepping out of the way.

“We weren’t standing at the door and listening!” exclaimed Ruby, waving her arms in exaggerated denial.

Weiss crossed her arms and raised an imperious eyebrow. “You weren’t?”

“Nope!” Yang agreed, beaming. “We certainly did not intentionally stay and overhear your reconciliatory agreement. I’m sure it was all pompous and official-like.”

“Right,” said Weiss. She turned over and pulled herself under the covers. “It’s a good thing you weren’t, then. SDC policy is clear on corporate espionage.”

Ruby paled. “It is?”

“I’d have had to freeze your ears off,” said Weiss. “So, thank you for confirming that I don’t have to do that.”

“Ahaha, yeah, that would be… that would be bad. Uh, thanks, Weiss!”

Weiss reached over to the lamp on her end table, clicking it off.

“Good night.”

 

* * *

 

Across the hall, Jaune sat in bed, staring at his scroll. The school directory already had the team assignments prominently displayed, showing the four members of JNPR together, with his name featured on top as team leader. He’d taken a screenshot and sent it to his family’s group text chain, hoping for some sort of validation.

His sisters all cheered him on. His parents were polite and congratulatory but didn’t say much other than that.

He wasn’t sure if they believed he was ready; in fact, he was almost certain they didn’t. What was worse, he didn’t think they were wrong.

He hadn’t done anything in the Initiation. He’d been careless, multiple people had to rescue him from his own mistakes, and then after all that, he’d been put in charge of _other people,_ including – but not limited to – one of the most famous gladiators in all of Anima.

Oh, he’d taken the time to look Pyrrha up after the Initiation. He needed to see if Weiss was exaggerating when she’d listed off his new teammate’s accomplishments.

If anything, she’d understated it. Trophies, awards, championships, the whole shebang.

 _Pyrrha_ should be leading the team, not Jaune.

His bed shook as Nora plopped herself down on top of it. “Cheer up, frowny-face,” she said. “We won!”

“Did we?” Jaune groused.

Nora reached over and pressed his cheeks in, pulling his face into a somewhat painful smile. “Yes, silly. We beat the Grimm, got the shiny paperweights, and now we’re all friends! If that’s not winning, I don’t know what is.”

“I didn’t do anything, though! I don’t know if I should be—”

Nora made a derisive noise and flapped her hand dismissively.

“...what?”

“You did a lot!” said Nora. “You saw all of our skills and made calls in the middle of the battle. That’s teamwork.”

“She’s right,” said Pyrrha from across the room. She looked up from cleaning her boots, the oil rag clutched in her hand. “The Headmaster saw your leadership potential from the way you directed us in the field.”

Jaune shrugged. “You guys probably would have done all the same things anyway, without me saying anything.”

“It’s possible,” Pyrrha agreed. “But that’s not what happened. You can’t go through life wondering about the what-ifs.”

“But I don’t know anything about being a leader!”

“That’s why you’re at Beacon,” said Ren, not looking up from his evening stretches. “If we already knew how to be Huntsmen, we wouldn’t be here.”

Oh. He hadn’t thought about it that way.

Jaune glanced around at his new team, his new _friends._ “You really don’t think they made a mistake, putting me here?”

“No.”

“Nnnnnnnope!”

“Not in the slightest.”

Jaune glanced back at his phone. There was a new message in the group chat – his father had gone to the bookshelf and dug out an old photo album. The picture he’d sent was taken from about waist height, with the dark smudge of a thumb partially over the lens, but the rest of it showed an open page, where Jaune’s grandfather proudly stood with his sword held high.

The chat beeped again with another message.

**_He’d be proud of you._ **

Jaune wiped his eyes, pushing away the tears that were threatening to spill out. He looked up at his team – _his_ team! – and smiled. Ren was finishing his stretches and laying out clothes for the morning. Pyrrha had set her boots on the ledge to dry and was carefully placing her circlet on the nearby desk. Nora had moved to her own bed and was already face-down, not even bothering to get under the covers, and snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

He was here. He was at Beacon. He had a team.

 _Step Three: Be a hero._ On-track and underway.

He clicked off the light and went to bed. They had a big day in the morning.

 

* * *

 **CCT Music Directory** **  
** _Info Panel – Faunus Folk Songs, Historical_

**Red In Tooth And Claw**

Following in the tradition of pre-War folk songs, Red In Tooth And Claw is told from the perspective of a faunus in a band of travelers. As the singer’s caravan travels from city to city and kingdom to kingdom, ever in search of a place to call home, they encounter opposition in the form of Grimm, bandits, and town guards who drive the faunus away.

The singer’s perspective is notable for not being the hero, but in the following of one, as they watch the leader of their caravan endure both physical and verbal abuse in defense of her charges. The verses follow the leader’s journey from navigator, to warrior, to eventual general of those faunus who also take up arms against the forces laid against them.

The caravan eventually comes across a town besieged both by invading bandits and the creatures of Grimm that such a battle traditionally attracts, allowing the leader a choice between protecting her people and assisting the town in their defense. The faunus bring their weapons to bear, turning the power of nature, “red in tooth and claw,” against bandit and Grimm alike. The faunus are decimated, and the leader gives her life in battle, but the town is saved and the surviving faunus are welcomed into the populace, where they live to this day.

Scholars of faunus history debate the origins of the song. The latter half of the song seems to refer to the Defense of Meadowdale, an iconic battle in the history of Sanus, where humans and faunus joined forces to turn back a tide of Grimm from the Vale border. Notable faunus leader Silver Wolfe died in battle at Meadowdale, lending credence to this claim. Her personal banner was used in remembrance for faunus sacrifice for many years, and variations are in use to this day. **[Crosslinked article: The White Fang, World of Remnant]**

23 artists have recorded versions of this song.

**[In response to vandalism from this CCT address, anonymous editing may be disabled. If you believe this is in error, please contact sysadmin and the Abuse team for arbitration.]**

**[Reason: BLANKET AREA – MENAGERIE.]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are not alone. You are loved, and you are deserving of love. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/


	6. School Daze, Part One

The forest of Forever Fall was peaceful and expansive, stretching from Vale all around the mountains and continuing down the eastern coastline. The crimson trees were hybrids; Dust-enhanced breeds of the original crimson maples that first made their way from Anima to the continent, overtaking the native species in their invasion and spreading all the way to the capital city itself.

As with many aspects of the Mistrali colonists, it was almost a metaphor turned literal – a way of life that they took with them, wanting the comforts and pleasures of home no matter how far from it they went. Culture, music, art; these were all transplanted to their colonies on Sanus, as were the trees with their particularly red leaves, regardless of season.

Continuing the parallel, the Vale trees took the invading species and blended them in with their own, resulting in a breed of deciduous megaflora hardier than the individual varieties were on their own.

At least, that was how the stories went. But one did not grow up as the subject of one ancient story just to discount any of the others off-hand, no matter _how_ fanciful or too on-the-nose they were.

Early morning was Amber’s favorite time of day. The chill of the air wasn’t overpowering, but refreshingly cool and sharp in her nose. It was crisp, like the bite of a fresh apple, ripe off the tree. Her breath hung in the air, wisps of white condensation that quickly dispersed into the wind.

It was peaceful. And furthermore, it was away from the city.

She didn’t like the city so much. Not these days, at least. She preferred the solace of the countryside, the quiet of the forest. Here she could forget that time existed, that the city was anywhere nearby, that there was anything at all in the entire world but her, the trees, the wind, and the crow making lazy circles in the sky above her.

Amber leaned on her staff, watching the red leaves wave in the morning breeze. She was dressed warmly – but comfortably – in her riding leathers, the hooded cloak gently dancing in the wind behind her. She carried no weapon save her staff, the Dust crystals on either end more than capable of producing any deadly force required to protect herself. With one notable exception, it always had.

As usual, the peace of the morning didn’t last. It never really did, around her.

A Beowolf stepped out of the bushes, red eyes burning with malice. An Alpha, by Beacon’s classifications, and an old one at that. Every bit of the creature had been honed into deadly efficiency. It stood tall, taller than most of its kind, bristling with white and red armor plating. Half of the armor plates were twisted into brutal spikes, protruding from its back, elbows, and knees with organic asymmetry. It towered over her, growling in her face as it approached. Grimm were strange in that way, Amber knew – supposedly mindless beasts, yet they still preferred to stalk their prey in plain sight, drinking more off the terror they instill than the raw primal carnage of the swift kill. This was why they always announced their presence when they arrived, snarling and roaring with abandon, instead of sneaking in unnoticed for uncontested violence.

Amber had never been a Huntress. Prior to her life changing, the only contact with the Grimm she’d had was cowering in fear as they assaulted her village, hoping that the guards and any Huntsmen passing through would be enough to stem the tide.

As with everything in her life, things had changed quickly.

She pushed herself upright, shifting her grip on her staff. “It’s a nice day,” she said, pulling back her hood. She craned her neck upwards to stare the Beowolf in the eye. “Can we not, say we did, and then I just go back to my morning walk?”

The Grimm leaned down so that its muzzle was inches from her face. Its gaze burned into her retinas, and she could feel the cold, clammy breath across her face. It reeked of death.

“No?” she asked, her voice full of disappointment. “Can we at least skip to the end?”

It roared in her face.

Well. That was her answer, then. She pressed a button on her staff – a new upgrade, since The Incident, which telescoped it out even further than its normal battle-ready length. The red crystal on top crashed into the Beowolf’s jaw from below, snapping the head back with an amount of force that even the mechanism in the unfolding was capable of – on the moment of impact, she pushed a trickle of Aura into the crystal for a controlled burst of explosive energy at the point of contact.

The Beowolf took a moment to regain its footing, which Amber used to her advantage, darting backwards with a burst of wind from the lower Dust crystal to enhance her speed. She set her feet, left forward, right anchoring her to her rear, and twirled the staff to bring the flame crystal to bear. She released a blast of fire from the crystal, channelling it with her Aura into a pressurized stream, striking the Grimm in the shoulder.

It charged through the fire, ducking onto all fours to let the fire wash over the armor plating, charring it but not burning through. She had to leap out of the way to avoid its claws, but it whirled around to follow her, swiping again and again.

She parried its claws as best as she could, spinning her staff to meet each strike. It quickly overpowered her, knocking her down, but she brought her feet up underneath, focused her Aura, and _shoved,_ pushing it off her for enough time for her to roll herself up to a crouch.

The next time she tried to parry, it wrapped its paw around the staff and yanked it from her hands. Her weapon bounced along the ground, rolling to a stop some feet away. It may as well have been miles, for all the help it did to her from that distance.

The Beowolf was between her and the weapon. It was advancing now, slowly, sensing her increasing desperation. A Huntress without her weapon was far more vulnerable, and thus a more delicious prey.

Amber had never been a Huntress. She didn’t need to be.

The cold winds of Autumn erupted under the Beowolf, knocking it once more off its feet. Amber drew the power to herself, guiding it to her beck and call. She was the burning wrath of a forest fire, the icy gale from the North meeting the warm humid air of the South, and there in the middle was her. She was the storm itself, tearing through the countryside, uprooting everything in its path. She was the Fall Maiden, herald to change itself, and her wrath was unyielding.

The wind rocketed her towards the fallen Grimm, fire blazing at the edges of her vision. She raised a hand and focused in power, calling golden-white lightning itself to her fingertips. It danced along her knuckles, wreathing her entire forearm. With a flick of the wrist, the lightning spread to her other hand, both arms crackling with electric fury. She touched down and set her feet as the Beowolf lunged at her, catching it by the jaws. There was a crack of thunder as she pulled her arms apart with all her strength, tearing the Grimm’s head in two.

The winds died down as she let the power fade. The miasma of the Grimm’s corpse evaporated into the swirling gale, leaving no sign it was ever there, save for Amber herself, struggling to catch her breath.

That was too close. She shouldn’t have had that much trouble with even the strongest Grimm. It was concerning, to say the least. This was a mistake.

“All in all,” echoed a voice from the trees around her, “I give it a solid six.”

Amber tensed, searching around her for the speaker. She eventually found him up in a particularly large tree, standing casually on a branch with one hand on his greatsword and the other propping himself up against the trunk.

He was a shamble of a man with a patchwork ensemble – comfortable black pants, a rumpled and untucked button-down shirt, and a dark crimson cloak, which was tattered and hung loose across his shoulders like he didn’t quite care how it fit. He was tall and lanky, all elbows and knees and sharp corners, from the wing tips of his shoes to the disheveled spikes in his hair. A man like that didn’t so much stand up as unfold. He _gangled._

Qrow Branwen, erstwhile Huntsman, current agent of the Emerald Tower and her unofficial Guardian. Maybe actually her official one, she wasn’t entirely sure how that worked.

“I had it under control,” she argued, forcing herself to walk calmly to her staff instead of darting over like her adrenaline was still screaming at her to do.

“Yeah, it really looked like it from up here.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “What happened to ‘keeping a low profile’?”

“It’s six in the morning in the middle of the woods,” Amber countered. “What more do you want me to do?”

Qrow jumped down from his branch and walked over to her. “Look, I get it. You want to throw lightning around, slay some monsters, I got no problem with that.” He pulled out his scroll and flipped it over so she could see it. “This is what I lose sleep over, kid.”

Amber squinted at the screen. “Is that a corgi?”

“What?” Qrow flipped the scroll back over so he could see the picture that was displayed, a small black-and-white dog playing with two children. “No, hang on…” He swiped through his photos until he found the one that he’d probably wanted to show her in the first place. “This.”

It was a picture taken from a security camera on a rooftop in Vale. There was a lot of glare and interference, but the clear focus was on the center of the rooftop, where two figures stood, facing off against a Bullhead hovering in the alley across from them. The airship’s hold was open, and inside…

Amber blinked. _That_ looked familiar. Standing in the open hatch was a dark, feminine figure, with a blazing bow in her hands and bright glowing runes of Dust in her clothing. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Qrow said, putting his scroll away. “If she’s in town, something’s happening. They came for you once, there’s no telling when they’ll make a move for you again.”

Amber brought her hand to her face, touching the withered scar left behind from the assassin’s attack. “I know about it now, I can prepare. I can be ready for them next time.”

“Next time?” Qrow sighed. “Think about it, Pumpkin Spice. They planned that whole ambush out. You fought them at your full power in a place of their choosing. They _planned_ it, probably had for weeks. They’re not going to come charging in blindly this time, either.”

“So what, am I supposed to just hide in the school and wait?” Amber shouted. “Might as well keep me in a glass cage, for all the good I could be doing out in the world. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do, ‘O Guardian’? Use my gifts to make the world a better place?”

“You go out without telling anyone,” Qrow said simply, “and next time that might not be me up in the tree, watching as you’ve nearly gotten yourself killed.”

Amber turned and started walking, not giving a response. She knew he was right, but it still stung. It still hurt.

The walk back to Beacon was quiet, mostly. Qrow fell into step behind her, shuffling along like he just happened to be going the same way, giving her the space she needed to think.

There was a piece of her missing and she could feel the hole it left in her soul. That was why she wanted to push harder, go farther. Prove she could still be out, doing _something_ in this world of horrors and nightmares.

“It’s getting harder, isn’t it?” he said, eventually, as if he was reading her thoughts. It probably wasn’t too hard to guess, at least; by his own admission, he’d seen most of the fight.

“It feels slower,” she said, staring at her hands. “It used to be as easy as breathing, but now it’s like I have to pull it out of a frozen jar. I thought Ozpin said she didn’t get that much?”

“She didn’t, but the part that she did take was important.”

“How do you even know that?”

“Because it all is,” said Qrow. He picked up just enough speed to catch up to her. “It’s like Aura, right? It’s a part of your entire self. You can take a bit out, and the rest might rush to fill the space, but the whole thing gets thinner, more spread out. Take too much away and it won’t be enough to protect you.”

They continued in silence until they reached the border of the school grounds. Students were starting to wake up, and the mass migration to the dining hall was a tableau of pre-coffee zombification in action.

“That’s what I need,” Amber said, watching a crow fly off into the distance. “Coffee will make things all better. Do you want—?”

She turned around, but of her Guardian, there was no sign. He had disappeared into the wind, for all she could tell.

“...every time,” she grumbled, pushing forward towards the school. “Every single freakin’ time.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Six  
School Daze, Part One**

* * *

 

The first week of school was about as close to Ruby’s expectations as she could reasonably expect. In fact, it was an awful lot like Signal in that way, which made sense, since the battle school back home was one of the primary feeders into Beacon Academy – it’d stand to reason that they’d want the transition from one to the other to be as smooth as possible.

In fact, the biggest hurdle was the move from living at home to living in a dorm. There was an _adjustment period._ Between the time she accidentally stepped on Weiss’s face three times in one night trying to get to the bathroom, the argument over whose closet was whose, and The Sock Incident, it was lucky that the girls hadn’t ended up killing each other by the end of the week.

(Strangely enough, it was The Sock Incident that brought the initial truce that led to equilibrium, as they all agreed to Never Mention The Sock Incident Ever Again. Once they all agreed on that, domestic armistice and reconciliation quickly followed.)

The classes themselves were about what Ruby had expected, too… for the most part. She’d been hoping to sign up for as many clubs and electives as she could, but the majority of first-year students had to stick with the general education courses before branching out. All of the general studies classes that first-years were assigned were also filled by team, so with a few exceptions, Ruby got to spend all her time with her new friends.

World History with Dr. Oobleck was as fast-paced as the man himself, the lectures taking place at the speed of light and questions fired off faster than the rounds off a machine gun. It was engaging, but frequently exhausting even trying to keep up with the lesson plans, and she often needed to decipher her own hastily-scribbled notes afterwards.

Despite his frantic pace and agitated vocal mannerisms, Oobleck was more than happy to slow down and repeat himself as necessary, and quite enjoyed when students interrupted his lectures to discuss and debate the topic at hand. He was a teacher who cared greatly about his subject, and only showed irritation at students who didn’t take it seriously.

On the other side of the extreme, Grimm Studies had initially been Ruby’s greatest disappointment at Beacon. She’d gone in with high expectations, only to be dashed by Professor Port’s long-winded stories and self-aggrandizing. Still, he did prove his credentials eventually, and the girls had – after a few heated arguments about clowning off in class – started learning how to decipher Port’s rambling dissertations.

Even so, Ruby was learning a lot more about Grimm anatomy and behavior from her own reading, until one day when Pyrrha had asked a pointed question about one of his stories that prompted further explanation. The class had then turned from That Time Professor Port Wrestled Three Beowolves To The Ground With No Weapon to a spirited exploration on Beowolf pack structure and their distinct lack of internal hierarchies. Ever since then, students had made a game of how long they could keep Port on topic before he devolved into another trip down Memory Lane.

Combat Training with Professor Goodwitch was probably the most straightforward class. Half the time was spent in partnered exercise, where the whole class took the floor at once and helped each other with their fighting styles. Goodwitch herself floated from student to student, offering advice and criticism on their form. While every student had their own style, and most Huntsmen centered their combat expertise around their weapons, there were still fundamentals that could be incorporated into everyone’s routines, as well as practical lessons on applied physics and the way that Aura could enhance every aspect of a person’s offense and defense.

Of course, the other half of her classes were one-on-one sparring matches, where students were called down in turn to face off against each other in tournament-style duels. Everyone lived for the days Goodwitch called for everyone to take seats and pick numbers. There were rumors that upperclassmen got to face off against the teachers themselves, each of them experienced Huntsmen in their own right, and Ruby couldn’t wait until she could give that a shot.

(Weiss had pointed out that Ruby would get her butt kicked. Ruby heartily agreed and cheerfully stated that it was the best way to see how much she still had left to learn.)

The other classes were just as specialized. Economics focused on how Huntsmen weren’t tied specifically to citizenship, and thus had a different scale of taxation and payment to accommodate this. The physical sciences were catered towards weaponry, combat, and Dust, rather than general and commercial applications that Ruby had seen in public schools. The kingdoms had far more industries to manage than that which involved Huntsmen, but as with anything involving Grimm and kingdom defense, the two tended to intersect more often than not.

After a brief consultation with the rest of her team, it made sense, really. Anything that didn’t apply to being a Huntsman had been covered by the time the average student arrived at Beacon. General public education, private tutoring, or other homeschool circumstances gave enough of a background to exist in society, and the point of attending one of the Huntsman Academies was to _be_ a Huntsman, after all. It was a specialized career, and needed a specialized knowledge base.

Upperclassmen did get additional electives to branch out their specializations, as well – a Dust Specialist like Weiss wouldn’t have the same needs as Ruby, who put all her focus into heavy weapons, and Yang’s front-lines melee focus differed enough from Blake’s tendency for tactical withdrawal and surgical strikes. Huntresses like themselves would have the chance to either take courses outside their comfort zones in an attempt to round out their skillsets, or lean into their specialties and take those strengths to new heights.

Until then, they had the foundations to build from. Who they were as Huntsmen, what they fight, and how to do so effectively.

“Hey, did you get one of these?” Jaune asked one day at breakfast. The two teams had been sharing a table for meals ever since finding out their dorm rooms were next to each other. It was easier to talk to people who you knew had your back, and taking down a giant Deathstalker and a Piper King together was the kind of thing that stuck with you.

Besides, two new friends were good. _Six_ new friends were _fantastic._

“One of what?” Ruby asked, leaning over her bowl of cereal to see what Jaune was talking about. “Is that Oobleck’s homework?”

“No.” Jaune shook his head, then looked down at the papers in front of him in surprise, as if he’d forgotten what he was working on. “I mean, yes, that’s what this is, but I meant the schedule we got this morning.”

“You got one of those too?” Ruby leaned back to grab her backpack off the floor next to her, almost falling off her chair as she did. Yang’s hand shot out and grabbed her by the collar to steady her right before she toppled to the ground. She wasn’t even looking, the show-off, which was absolutely Yang showing off and _not at all_ indicative of the fact that this entire routine had happened way too many times in the past.

Tossing a quick “thanks!” to her sister, she started rummaging around in her bag. “We got one in our mailbox this morning too, I didn’t know what to make of it.” She pulled out the slip of paper in question: a reprinted team schedule, unchanged from the one Ruby had initially received on the first day of classes except for a bolded note on Fridays.

“That’s it exactly,” Jaune confirmed, pulling out a similar one. “Combat class is cancelled for us every other Friday for a ‘work internship’, starting next week.”

Ruby held up her own team’s schedule. “Same for us, except ours start _this_ Friday. So we’re not doing it together, I guess.”

Jaune scratched the back of his head contemplatively. “Oh, well that ruins our theory.”

“We thought Ms. Goodwitch was having health problems!” Nora chimed in. “But if you guys are still going to her class on that day, then she must be fine.”

Ruby pulled the schedule back and stared at the note. “‘Team RWBY Work Internship, Beacon Auditorium, 9 AM’. I wonder what that means.”

“Do any of the other teams have to do that?” Jaune asked.

“Ooh, that’s a thought!” Ruby exclaimed. “I’ll go check!”

She ran off, activating her Semblance to cover ground, leaving her friends in her wake.

 

* * *

 

After the mysterious notes from the morning’s mail, the rest of the day was almost refreshingly normal. Professor Port had gone into a spirited history of Grimm iconography throughout the ages, staying remarkably on-topic as he delved deep into kingdom mythology and the differences between the Grimm of fable and the real kind that Huntsmen face every day.

Despite the morning’s distractions, Jaune was finding himself captivated by the lesson. His entire reason for being here was based on his family’s stories of monsters and heroism, after all, and with the massive reality check he’d gotten upon arriving, it was probably for the best that he learn what stories might end up getting him killed.

He raised his hand for the third time since class begun. “Excuse me, Professor Port?”

Port puffed up with pride. “Yes, my boy? What is it?”

“About the Goliath and the Piper,” said Jaune, his pencil at the ready. “Are they really afraid of each other? Could you use that against them?”

“That’s another one that will get an unwary Huntsman in trouble,” said Port. “Wonderful question, Mr. Arc. No, the thing about a herd of Goliaths…”

Something hit Jaune in the head, interrupting him from the notes he was taking. He grabbed it off the desk; it was a scrap of paper, crumpled into a ball. He glanced around, hoping to see who threw it.

The only person who was looking at him at the moment was Pyrrha, her eyes wide and a faint smile on her face. Since they’d started the term as partners, she’d been subtly prodding him to pay more attention in class, not quite scolding him when he struggled, but he could tell she was concerned. Today, then, must have been a pleasant surprise.

He opened the paper and read the note written on it. **Way to show your ignorance, nerd.**

...right. So that was probably not from Pyrrha.

Jaune went to crumple it up to throw it away, but a soft wind blew across his desk, scattering it across the lecture hall along with a flurry of rose petals. He turned to his right to see Ruby sitting next to him, red-faced and breathing hard, trying to act like she’d been there the whole time.

“Hey.”

“Hey!” Ruby squeaked, grinning apologetically at him. “Sorry, I was trying to track down the team leaders I knew to ask them about the Friday thing. Turns out, nobody else knew what I was talking about! I even asked Cardin.”

“Really?” Jaune asked, glancing down the row at the hulking brute, not even pretending to pay attention to the lecture. “What did he say?”

“I’m going to leave it at a ‘no’ and hope to never have to ask him anything ever again,” Ruby muttered darkly. She crossed her arms and huffed. “I don’t know why some people are like that.”

“He’s a little bit of a jerk,” said Jaune begrudgingly.

“A _little bit?_ ” Ruby gaped at him. “Jaune, he shoved you into a locker and launched you halfway across the city!”

Jaune waved a hand in what he hoped came across as a casually dismissive manner. “I was about a five minute walk from the airship dropoff, it didn’t take long to get back.”

“How about the time he superglued your sword into your shield?”

“It only took a couple hours to clean it up,” Jaune weakly protested. “I don’t know why—”

“He _got your head stuck. In. The toilet._ ”

“How do you even know about that one?”

“Nora told me. Asked me if I wanted to help her break his legs.” Ruby shook her head. “I said not to do that.”

“Well, good—”

“Because Yang had an even better idea.”

Jaune dropped his forehead to the table with a muted thunk. “Ruby, you don’t have to—”

“We’re not,” Ruby admitted.

“Okay. Good. Why not?”

Ruby grinned. “Pyrrha told us not to. You know how she gets.”

He did, at that. “Ruby, I appreciate it, but you don’t have to meddle on my behalf. I can fight my own battles.”

“Oh, I know you can, that’s totally not the point,” said Ruby. “Cardin skeeves us all out, not just you. Some of us are just a bit more direct about it. Ask Pyrrha sometime.”

Jaune blinked in surprise. “What do you mean, what did she do?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Ruby asked. “He tried to pull her ponytail the other day and she flipped him so hard into a door that his Aura _shattered._ ” She punctuated this by bunching her hands into a ball, then spreading them apart and making explosion noises with her mouth. “Pshoooo, baaaah, emotional devastatiooooon~”

Several heads had turned and were watching Ruby instead of the lecture. Jaune ducked his head to try to avoid recognition. “We can – Ruby, can we talk about this later?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely.” She stood up, seemingly forgetting that she was in the middle of class, an act that did not go unnoticed.

“Ah, Ms. Rose,” Port’s rich baritone rang out. “So good of you to finally join us.”

Ruby froze mid-motion. “Oh! Yes! Hi, Professor. I was just… I had a thing…”

“Of course, of course,” said Port. “Perhaps you’d be willing to jump right in, get a head start?”

“Uh, sure?” Ruby sat back down. There was nervous laughter from around the room; nobody wanted to be where Ruby was right now. Jaune didn’t really blame them.

“Perfect.” Port’s entire demeanor became predatory, happy that he’d caught a tardy student in his trap. “Then you can tell me why it’s never a good idea to approach a pack of Beowolves in the forest at night.”

Ruby frowned. “I didn’t have a problem with it when I did.”

This was clearly not what Port had been expecting, and he eagerly let loose a series of rapid-fire questions about Ruby’s experiences fighting.

Jaune squirmed awkwardly in his chair, going over his notes. That was one heck of a bullet he’d dodged there, and while he bemoaned the tangent away from the other questions he’d really liked to have asked, he was still relieved for the change of subject.

 

* * *

 

The next day started out quieter. No sudden changes to either team’s schedule, no cryptic notes, and – to the relief of pretty much everyone – little-to-no Cardin Winchester.

That wasn’t to say that he was gone; he attended classes like he did every day, staying under the teachers’ radar and not causing trouble. He’d gone the entire morning without bullying Jaune, or throwing his name around to intimidate his classmates, or anything else notable.

Pyrrha had known plenty of people like that back in Sanctum. Mistral was the kingdom of self-expression, after all, and there were a multitude of ways for the arrogant and the selfish to express themselves. Most of those methods were at the expense of all those they deemed “lesser” than themselves.

Oh, she’d clocked Cardin Winchester for one of those the moment she’d laid eyes on him. She’d known what he was _right away,_ whether he’d tried unsuccessfully to intimidate her or not, and she did not trust his sudden reticence for a hot second. He was flying too far under the radar. He had to be up to something.

It didn’t take long for her suspicions to be proven true.

Dr. Oobleck’s classroom was as disheveled and seemingly scattered as the man himself. Maps and charts covered every inch of the walls, encroaching into the blackboard area itself, with no immediate rhyme or reason to their placement. Lesson plans and reference books littered his desk, retrieved at the relevant portions of the lecture, and summarily discarded the moment they were no longer useful, left to lay where they fell until the next time they were needed.

Despite the chaotic appearance of the lecture hall, there nonetheless was some sort of system in place – at least, one that Oobleck himself knew and understood. So too was the man structured in his routine, his unkempt appearance belying the adherence to the lesson plan; no matter how the discussions tangented, focus was always brought back to the subject at hand.

Dr. Oobleck was in many ways the antithesis of Professor Port, whose polished appearance stayed in inverse proportion to the amount of focus he managed to keep on his own lesson plans. Although both teachers were masters of their field of study, Pyrrha noted, as well as accomplished Huntsmen.

“...and it was the action of General Wolfe that routed the bandits out of Meadowdale, turning the tide in the war,” Oobleck was saying, darting back and forth between the map of Sanus currently projected in front of the blackboard and the replica painting he’d set up in the classroom prior to the day’s lesson.

The painting was oil on canvas – at least, the original was, this was a printed posterboard resting on an easel – depicting a victorious battle scene in colors faded to time and incomplete restoration. The village gates were centered on the canvas, wood and stone, with the emerald flag of Vale flying proudly above the walls, tattered and scorched but patriotically waving. In the foreground were the soldiers of Vale, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the faunus, the silver armor of the soldiers standing in stark contrast to the leather armor and cloth robes of the faunus. They were surrounded on both sides by creatures of Grimm, depicted in the popular historical style of a faceless black swarm, indistinct features save the outstretched claws and the glowing red eyes.

On the right side of the battle lines, a faunus woman in blue armor was forever immortalized in her dying action, trading blows with a Grimm. Her fangs were bared in a snarl, her ears pressed down upon her head in a threatening pose, and her sword piercing the battle lines of the oncoming swarm. Pitch-black claws pierced her chest, impaling her even as she cut down the attacking creature. Surrounding her were her forces, horrified and in despair of her sacrifice, but they were shielded from the attack with her own body.

Behind the woman, of equal size and stature to the flag of Vale, was the faunus’s bright blue battle standard. A wolf’s head in profile, white against the blue backdrop.

“Now,” continued Oobleck, surreptitiously refilling his coffee cup from the massive carafe on his desk, “can anyone tell me what was so significant about this battle?”

Several students raised their hands.

“Ms. Belladonna?”

“This was the first time the faunus were welcomed in human villages in large numbers,” said Blake from across the room.

“Absolutely correct,” said Oobleck. “Indeed, the perspicacious persistence of the perpetrating personage prevailed, precluding all previous protests to their prior predicament!”

The class was silent, trying to work out what he’d just said. After a moment, Blake raised her hand again. “But that didn’t really solve anything,” she said.

“Precisely! In fact, any claims that this provided a perfect state of affairs to human/faunus relations are preposterous!”

“Serves them right,” a voice said in a sardonic drawl. “More of them died in Meadowdale than the humans.”

_“Excuse me?”_

“You heard me.” Cardin pulled his feet off his desk and sat up straight. “They came into town, fought the Grimm, most of them died, and then expected everyone to just treat them like normal after that.”

“An interesting read on the text, Mr. Winchester,” Oobleck deadpanned, “if utterly unsubstantiated. The faunus were considered citizens of Vale after the battle, having been granted asylum from the King himself.”

Cardin made a rude gesture. “The King was angling for the spotlight, he’d have granted asylum to the bandits if they’d stayed to fight.”

Pyrrha shook her head. “You’re wrong, Cardin.”

Oobleck’s focus zeroed in on her like a laser. “Your thoughts on the matter, Ms. Nikos?”

“The King of Vale had been looking for an excuse to extend an olive branch to the faunus for some time,” she said, reciting the previous night’s reading assignment. “The only reason he hadn’t yet was because popular opinion was against him. It took a massive act to, for lack of a better term, ‘humanize’ the faunus in the kingdom’s eyes.”

“Pffsh.” Cardin glared at her. “If you have to throw yourselves into the woodchipper, you’re not really proving you’re anything other than kindling.”

“Mr. Winchester, I approve of multiple perspectives in my class, but I draw the line at bigotry,” Oobleck warned. “Please keep this in mind.”

Pyrrha stared back at Cardin as he leaned back, apparently satisfied with his antics. He had to be angling for some sort of reaction, and she would find out what it was.

Oobleck continued his lecture. “Now, what we do know of the tensions between the humans and the faunus is largely word-of-mouth, as the majority of the historical texts are confined to subjects such as the encroaching Grimm, the wandering bandits, and inter-kingdom tensions that led up to and through the Great War. Most of what we have about faunus relations is from art, such as this—” he gestured to the painting, “—and folk songs. The legend of General Wolfe was one of hope and inclusivity, a rallying cry that became a battle hymn during the Faunus War. The iconography was then used by multiple civil rights movements, such as which ones? Anyone?”

More hands were raised, Pyrrha’s among them. Oobleck’s gaze passed over all of them and landed on one student in particular whose hand was not up; nor, Pyrrha noticed with increasing horror, was his head, an unruly mop of blond hair pressed firmly against the desk, all but snoring away.

“Mr. Arc, do you have an insight to this?” Oobleck inquired, darting over in front of Jaune. “Mr. Arc.”

Jaune actually let out a snore. The class laughed, knowing that whatever came next, it was going to be hilarious.

Pyrrha wasn’t laughing. Neither was Dr. Oobleck, who picked up Jaune’s textbook, lifted it two feet above the desk, and dropped it, crashing down with a massive thunk right next to Jaune’s ears.

“Wha – yes I’ll take three,” Jaune mumbled with a start as he shot upright. “What?”

“The answer to my question, Mr. Arc. Do you have it?”

“Uh, yes! The answer.” Jaune glanced around the room anxiously. Pyrrha tried to attract his attention without letting Oobleck see. “The answer to the question. Your question. Your question that you asked about...”

His eyes finally met Pyrrha’s and she flashed her hands through a few quick signs. At Jaune’s confused and helpless expression, she switched to more demonstrative gestures.

“...about the faunus known as the…”

Pyrrha raised her fingers to her mouth, curling them in towards her chin in exaggerated fangs.

“...the tusks? Like a warthog.”

She dropped her own head to the desk in frustration, letting the renewed laughter of the class wash over her.

“Very amusing, Mr. Arc,” said Oobleck, his voice drier than a Vacuo desert. “Does anyone else know?”

“The White Fang,” said Blake again, not even raising her hand this time. “They used the personal crest of General Wolfe for decades, using her spirit to help unite the faunus in times of great suffering.”

“They brought it on themselves,” Cardin repeated. “Act like an animal, get treated like an animal.”

“The White Fang was a civil rights protest for a long time,” Blake protested. “People were tired of being treated as lesser than humans, so of course they banded together to protect themselves.”

“Herded,” said Cardin with a smug grin.

“How _dare you,_ ” Blake growled, starting to rise from her seat. Yang’s hand clamped down on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

“Mr. Winchester, I warned you,” said Oobleck. “See me after class.”

Jaune started to chuckle.

“You as well, Mr. Arc.”

Jaune’s face fell.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the class continued with a spirited discussion on the lead-up to the Faunus War, and Pyrrha was able to take an impressive amount of notes, despite the distraction of the previous interruptions. She’d put her books away and stood outside the classroom, waiting for Jaune to come out.

She wasn’t alone, either. Ruby and Yang had hung back to check on Jaune and see what punishment Oobleck had levied.

“He’s been working very hard,” Pyrrha reassured them. “It doesn’t look like it, but Jaune really does have a lot of potential.”

Ruby nodded. “He’s a good kid,” she said, rocking back and forth on the soles of her boots. “Just needs some good ol’ fashioned work ethic and elbow grease.”

“He’s two years older than you,” Yang reminded her.

“He’s a _good kid,_ ” Ruby repeated insistently. “From the wrong side of the tracks, fighting against a world that doesn’t believe in him, he works hard to shed the stigma of his past! But watch out, because he’s making a comeback, and this summer you will believe a man can fry!”

“...can fry?” Pyrrha asked.

“Ruby binged all of Uptown Pastry Chefs last weekend,” Yang explained. “She cried at the season finale.”

“If you’d seen the glaze on her cinnamon rolls, _you’d cry too!_ ”

Pyrrha smiled despite her anxiety. She hadn’t known the sisters long, but they were comfortable to be around. Like the rest of her own team, Ruby and Yang were welcoming in such a way that she felt like they’d been friends for longer than the handful of weeks since term started. It was easy to fall into their playful bickering.

After a few minutes of restless waiting, Jaune shuffled out of the lecture hall, a pile of fresh books in his hand, far more than the textbooks he had entered the class with.

“Heya, Snoozles,” said Yang, leaning against the wall. “What’d Oobleck charge you with?”

“Two weeks of extra reading,” Jaune responded, lifting the books in demonstration. “And a strong recommendation for his favorite coffee blend.”

Ruby scrunched up her nose. “Ewww. The one that smells like jet fuel?”

“That would be the one, yes,” Jaune confirmed. “I’m doing my best, but it’s just… it’s a lot.”

“Cheer up,” Yang said, pushing off the wall and walking away. “You’ll get there. I believe in you!” She raised her arm in farewell as she left, flicking her fingers to the side in a jaunty wave.

Jaune sighed. “That would be one of us, at least.” He shook his head with a groan, then pulled himself together with a forced smile. “Well, at least the day can’t get any wors—”

It was, Pyrrha decided later, the ultimate act of immediate divine retribution for tempting fate in such a way. The words were barely out of Jaune’s mouth before a wall of muscle bowled him over, shoulder-checking him on the way out of the room.

“Watch where you’re walking, dimwit,” Cardin snapped as he shoved past.

Jaune managed to keep his balance and drew himself up to his full height. “I’m standing still,” he said, “watch where _you’re_ walking.”

Cardin froze mid-step. “What did you say to me?”

Jaune visibly swallowed, but he held firm. “I said, you watch where _you’re_ walking,” he repeated, his voice quavering.

There was a tense moment. Cardin turned around and stalked back over to Jaune. “You’ve made a big mistake,” he growled, stepping directly into Jaune’s personal space, forcing him to take a panicked step backwards. “I’m gonna—”

“Going to _what,_ Cardin Winchester?” said Pyrrha, stepping forward next to Jaune. She stared him dead in the eye, only turning her head up slightly to meet his gaze. Though he towered over her, she stood resolute. “Please, finish that sentence, I’m _quite_ curious.”

Cardin stared down at her, holding his ground. He _loomed,_ making the very most of his broad shoulders and his full height, six inches over Pyrrha at her most upright posture.

She merely raised an eyebrow, cocked her head to the side, and crossed her arms. “Try it. See what happens.”

“Fuck this,” Cardin growled. He turned and stomped away.

Pyrrha closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and centered herself. She hadn’t actually been sure what Cardin was going to do, and she’d been building her Aura in preparation for a fight. With the conflict over, the spare adrenaline was still coursing through her bloodstream, making her nerves scream.

She turned around. Ruby was behind her, practically floating on the tips of her toes, her arms scrunched up in front of her as if she was trying to hug the very air itself. “That was _so cool,_ ” she said, now bouncing up and down on her tiptoes. “He was like ‘grrr’ and you were like ‘whoosh’ and he was like ‘whooooa’ and I wanna learn how to do that!”

“Maybe Nora has a point,” said Pyrrha, allowing herself a small grin. “Next time I really should break his legs.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” Jaune said. His voice was strangely quiet, and as he stood there, head bowed down, his fingers started to turn white as he clenched hard on the stack of books.

“Jaune?” Pyrrha blinked, ducking her head into his line of sight. “Cardin is a bully, he shouldn’t be acting that way to anyone.”

“I don’t need you to fight my battles!” Jaune dropped the books and stormed off, leaving Pyrrha and Ruby stunned in his wake.

Pyrrha stared after him. “I’m sorry, I just…”

But he was already gone.

 

* * *

 

Jaune avoided Pyrrha the rest of the day, not bothering to show up for meals, making a point to sit away from her in their other classes.

“He’s in a snit,” Nora said at dinner, gesturing wildly with her fork. Mashed potatoes went flying. “It’ll blow over, it’s fine.”

“He seemed really hurt,” Pyrrha said. “It’s like he would have rathered Cardin beat him up than have me help him.”

“Boys are weird,” Nora explained, explaining nothing. “Right, Ren?”

“Boys are weird,” Ren agreed.

“Just watch, he’ll come around.” Nora speared her steak and picked the entire thing up with her fork. Ren grabbed her hand and brought it down, steak and all, and pushed her knife into her other hand. “Jaune means well, but he’s kind of a bit shortsighted, haven’t you noticed? He’s very conscious about his image.”

“I don’t know why that would matter,” Pyrrha said, completely gobsmacked. In her experience, image was completely irrelevant. People were going to think what they thought of you, regardless of who you actually were.

“Toxic masculinity is as deadly as any Grimm,” said Ren, turning to his own food. “Jaune is desperate for any method that he can crawl out of his sisters’ shadows, despite the personal harm that comes his way. He feels inadequate, and thus seeks to prove himself, even though his skills are lacking.”

Pyrrha and Nora stared at him. “Did… how do you know this?” Nora asked.

“He mutters to himself when he texts his family,” said Ren. “I try not to eavesdrop, but it’s hard when my bed is right next to his.”

Nora gasped. “Does that mean that you’re eavesdropping on my dreams when I talk in my sleep?”

“I try not to.”

“That’s terrible! My dreams are my private me-time! Respect my boundaries!”

“I’ll try harder.”

Pyrrha mulled this over. “Self-image. I made him feel inadequate because I stepped in on his fight.”

“That’s it exactly,” said Nora, looking up from behind Ren. She had moved to clamping her hands onto either side of his head. “Boys are sensitive to that sort of thing, they’re not really in full command of their emotions.”

“Most boys,” Ren agreed, pulling Nora’s hands off his ears. “When your self-image is based on a one-dimensional archetype, it is fragile. Any scrutiny will shatter it.”

“So the fact that I stepped in to save him in front of other people didn’t really help,” Pyrrha noted. “Do you really think I should have just let Cardin assault him?”

“What?” Nora exclaimed. “No! Not at all! If anything you should have done worse!”

“But you just said his self-image—”

“Screw his self-image, Cardin’s an asshole!” Nora thumped the table with her fist, splintering the wood. She glanced down at the spiderweb cracks beneath her hand, and dialed back the outrage slightly. “Jaune’s our leader, and our friend, and we should always protect him, just like we’d want him to protect us in return. A bruise to his ego is an acceptable casualty!”

Pyrrha nodded. “Alright. I think I know what to do, then. Wish me luck!”

Her teammates cheered her on as she dropped off her tray at the waste receptacle and booked it for the dorms.

The distance between Jinjur Hall and the castle proper was irritating in most circumstances, but it gave her time to think. She was still adapting to the fact that she didn’t have to put on a show for people. Well, for _some_ people, at least. There were still fans of hers here, just like there tended to be other places, but it wasn’t just Jaune that had treated her like a normal person upon meeting her. Nora and Ren certainly recognized her, but she’d gotten the impression that they were merely aware of her accolades the same way that they were aware of anyone else’s identity. This is Ruby, she’s an early applicant. This is Weiss, she’s from Atlas. This is Pyrrha, she’s fought in tournaments.

Talking to them later, it made sense in the broader context of their lives, but that didn’t make it mean any less that they’d seen her as a person, not a persona.

It was hard to understand that people would _want_ to put on a show. That they wouldn’t strive for people to see them for who they really were, instead of a collection of archetypes and statistics. Admittedly, it still didn’t make sense, but she understood that it might be important for Jaune, and for other people, so she didn’t have to understand why to respect it.

Regardless, she had a plan.

She burst through the doors of the dormitory and made her way up to their room. Hopefully he’d still be there.

A swipe of her scroll’s ID across the lock opened the door. She pushed into the room.

As she’d hoped, Jaune was there, with a plate of food and an open textbook. The burst of relief was twofold; not just that he was there and she wouldn’t have to go hunting around campus for him, but the fact that he was studying instead of procrastinating. He glanced up, hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of noodles, and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Pyrrha? Can I help you?”

“Come with me,” she offered, holding out her hand imploringly.

He stared at it as if it would attack. “What?”

“Come with me,” Pyrrha repeated, beckoning for him to stand up and follow her. “I want to show you something.”

He set the plate down and closed his book. “Is this another pile of smashed watermelons, because I told Nora that they were very impressive but I didn’t think that she’d keep doing it.”

“She hasn’t done that in at least a week,” Pyrrha reminded him. “Come on, I promise it’ll be worth it.”

He got up with a sigh, silently following her out of the room, up the stairwell, and onto the rooftop.

The sun was setting over the city, throwing the sky into the brilliant oranges and pinks that only an industrial cityscape could provide. The last rays of sunlight reflected off Beacon, shining off the top of the Emerald Tower in a dazzling display of color, the verdant globes in the clockwork observatory glittering in the waning daylight.

The door clicked shut behind them. Pyrrha grinned nervously at Jaune. “So, I wanted to bring you up here,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah,” Jaune agreed, staring off into the distance. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up here.”

“It’s quiet,” Pyrrha continued. “With us alone, I thought we could talk about earlier.”

Behind his eyes, a wall slammed down. “Earlier.”

She pressed on. “With Cardin. I know you’ve been working hard, harder than anyone else, and I think you’re making great strides!”

“‘But’?” Jaune prompted.

“But,” Pyrrha continued, “I know that you’re very self-conscious about your fighting. I know it’s a sore spot for you, so I thought we could come up here, just the two of us.” She gestured towards the empty rooftop. “We could train.”

“You think I need help?” Jaune asked.

“...yes,” Pyrrha said. “Yes, you do, and I know it’s hard to ask for, so I thought—”

“You thought what, that you’d rub it in my face? Poor Jaune, too weak to fight Grimm, too wimpy to stand up to Cardin Winchester.” Jaune threw his arms up in exasperation. “You couldn’t wait to point it out.”

This was going all wrong. “No,” she tried to say, “that’s not what I meant at all.”

“Then what did you mean, Pyrrha?” Jaune asked. His eyes flashed with anger. “What would you know about how hard I’m working?”

“It’s clear to me that you’re starting from the beginning,” Pyrrha said, keeping her voice steady. None of this was turning out like she’d planned. “I wanted to help.”

“I don’t want to be the damsel in distress,” Jaune snapped. “I want to be the hero! Like my grandfather was! I thought you of all people would understand that.”

“I do!” She felt tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. Tears of stress, tears of sadness, tears of fury. She fought them back, the same way she fought everything else back.

It was a show. She needed to put on a show. It was second nature to her.

It broke her heart that she had to.

“I do understand,” she said, forcing calmness into her voice. “That’s why I’m asking you here, not in front of Nora, or Ren, or Ruby, or anyone else. Just you and me.”

“You know,” Jaune said, ignoring her, “I thought you were supposed to be the best at everything, but you really suck at being a friend.”

He stormed off, slamming the door behind him.

Pyrrha stood there, alone, on the rooftop. Staring at the closed door, as the sun set behind her. Watching the light fade from the sky. Up here, she was alone. She didn’t have to put on a show anymore. She didn’t have to close off her emotions.

So _that_ was why people put up walls between themselves and others. When they were down, it hurt even worse when they left.

 

* * *

**World of Remnant  
Dust Specialists**

Huntsmen are as varied as they come, with a variety of useful weapons and tricks in which to use them. So, too, are their combat styles. Every Huntsman crafts a unique weapon and tailors their combat style to match.

Some choose to fight the creatures of Grimm on their own terms, matching swords for fangs, fists for claws. Others prefer long-range solutions, finding the perfect headshot from a mile away, and moving quickly from vantage point to vantage point. Though most Huntsmen make copious use of Dust, both for ammunition and to augment their attacks, there is still one subset of hero that places special focus on Dust and its applications.

The Dust Specialist, previously referred to as Dust Mages due to the magical appearance of Dust activation and use, places heavy importance on the elemental properties of Dust. Given the adaptive properties of most Dust types, it is far more common for Huntsmen with exceptional control over their Auras, or those with more specialized Semblances, to become Dust Specialists over those that specialize in melee or ranged weapons. Someone with a Semblance that manipulated the environment, or one that could shape elemental forces directly, would be able to utilize Dust attacks and support to the fullest extent of their abilities, whereas a Semblance that augmented physical strength might not be as well suited to the task.

Research on the effects of Dust on individual Huntsmen is incomplete, and in many cases inconclusive. The current school of thought is that the type of Dust can augment the self as well as the environment; using a Lightning effect to complement a personal movement ability creates a temporal dilation effect, causing the user to move and react faster than they otherwise can. Similarly, Gravity Dust has been seen to cause the opposite effect, though its use in combat is highly specialized and can frequently be misused.

As with any focus, this role is a double-edged sword. A Dust Specialist needs either a well-rounded team to support their specialty, or they need to train in other disciplines in order to not hamper their survivability in the field. Too much cross-training, and they may not have as devastating or powerful of a presence on the battlefield as they need to be. Too little, and they restrict themselves. When all you have is a hammer, it’s not so much that every problem looks like a nail.

It’s what happens when the hammer is taken away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uptown Pastry Chefs is the pinnacle of daytime entertainment, telling the sordid tale of a baker, down on her luck, with her on-again off-again lover, a reverse twin from another dimension, and the economic pressure of the competing bakery across the street. It has been on for thirty years, won a multitude of awards, and has spawned three spinoff series, five cookbooks, and a decades-old hairstyle that everyone's mother seemed to have had at one point or another.


	7. School Daze, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, we all know what happened here. I'm confining the Jaune arc to one place.

Friday. The end of the school week. Just one more day until the blissfully vacant weekend, one in which Ruby’s team had the entirety to themselves. No surprise combat training, no long-form essay to procrastinate until the last possible second, and more importantly the movie theater right off the school transit line down in Vale was having a _City Heist_ marathon, in honor of the first movie’s twentieth anniversary re-release. All five movies in a row for one special ticket price! Even though the fourth one was tamed down for wider audiences and the fifth one was set in Vacuo for absolutely no reason at all, they were all still fun. Especially with all the snacks she could sneak in!

(That was the glorious thing about all the layers of crinoline, you could hide _a lot_ of fun-sized candy boxes underneath.)

Before all that could happen, though, there was the mysterious change to Team RWBY’s schedule. Classes for the day had been replaced with a biweekly mystery internship – she’d finally stopped Yang from calling it the Mysternship – and JNPR’s turns would be offset with theirs. Nobody else seemed to know what it was about, or even that it was a thing that happened; Blake’s friend Velvet, in the year above them, hadn’t known what it was about, either.

Weiss had been nervous about a kidnapping attempt, what with her being the heiress to a globally important multi-billion-lien company, and Pyrrha and Blake didn’t disagree with her concern. The only reassurance was that they’d asked Professor Goodwitch directly, and she’d confirmed that it was on the books. That was an instant relief to both teams.

Thus, there Ruby stood in the auditorium with her team, Friday morning, loaded for Ursa. Weapons were retrieved, cleaned, and reloaded. Supplies were stocked. Breakfast had been well and truly eaten.

“What do you think?” asked Yang, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. “Search and rescue? Capture and kill?”

“It’s our first year,” Blake pointed out. “They’re not supposed to give us missions until at least the second semester.” She was perched on the edge of the stage, poking idly at one of the frayed edges of the carpeting.

“That just means they saw how awesome we were! It’s just us and JNPR, none of the other teams are doing this.”

“Or maybe it’s a remedial study,” countered Weiss from the stands. “We’ve got the youngest team leader in recent history—”

“Hey!” Ruby objected. “Or maybe thank you!”

“—and you’ve all seen Jaune’s grades,” Weiss finished. “Maybe they’re kicking us down to probational status.”

Ruby gasped. The concept of requiring remedial classes – and worse, dragging her team down with her – had not even occurred to her until this moment, and it was like a lightning bolt made of ice directly down her spine. “Oh, don’t say that,” she pleaded, “that would be a horrible thing! And we’ve been working so hard!”

“Don’t listen to the Ice Queen,” Yang reassured her. “We’ve been kicking ass both in-school and out, there’s no way they’d punish us for that.”

“It was just a thought,” said Weiss, defensively. “You don’t have to call me names over it.”

“Term of endearment,” Yang said, waving her hand dismissively. “You’re a regular barrel of winter sunshine and we love you for it.”

“Hm.”

“Well, if it is something special,” Ruby said, rebounding back from existential terror to exuberance, “then it’s gotta be something _special!_ We’re probably shadowing a badass Huntsman and learning the ropes right from the source!”

“Five lien on search and rescue!” Yang declared.

The tap of a cane on the stage drew everyone’s attention.

“I assure you,” said Professor Ozpin, “your arrangement is nothing so elaborate.” He casually strolled across the stage, paying no mind to the girls hurriedly arranging themselves in front of him.

Behind him trailed a woman. She was tall – at least as tall as Yang, with the raised heels on her boots, though certainly not as statuesque as Pyrrha. Definitely not as muscular; her frame was lean, like a runner’s build. Closer to Ruby herself than anyone else, if she was going to make the comparison. She was dressed in comfortable riding leathers, with a belted white blouse that offset her olive-toned skin. A dark green cloak draped across her shoulders, and the hood was up, concealing her features.

Ruby blinked as she watched the woman walk forward. This had to be the person they were going to shadow, but she didn’t really look like a Huntress. Although, it was hard to tell what a Huntress was supposed to look like, if she really thought about it. Less kind people would say that _Ruby_ didn’t really look like a Huntress, after all, and appearances never informed a person’s capabilities.

Still, something was bothering her, deep at the back of her mind. She couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Students,” Ozpin was saying, “this is Amber. She’ll be requiring your services every other Friday.”

Amber smiled and bowed her head. “Thank you for coming, Team RWBY.” Her face was obscured in heavy shadow.

“Are you a Huntress?” Ruby asked, the excitement boiling over all at once. There were few things that evoked such a reaction from her: Huntresses and heavy weapons. She didn’t see a weapon, but that didn’t stop her from squealing with the proximity to what, to Ruby, was a local celebrity. “Are we going to be shadowing you while you work? Do you travel all over? How many Grimm have you slain?”

Amber raised her hands to ward off the rapid-fire questions. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not a Huntress.”

“Oh.” Ruby tried not to look as disappointed as she felt. She pushed forward anyway, rallying around Ozpin’s statement. “What can we help you with?”

“Amber is a citizen who has reached out to Beacon for aid,” said Ozpin. “She’s involved in outreach and preservation for the Kingdom at large, and is in need of assistance.”

Yang raised her hand. “Um, sorry, just want to be clear. What kind of assistance do you need from Huntsmen?”

Ozpin chuckled. “Ms. Xiao Long, as a Huntress, your duties will take you all over the world, and you may be asked to assist in a great many things. Part of this outreach program, and this internship I have enrolled your team in, is to gain experience in the sort of community service you’ll be called upon. Some of it may involve Grimm, or the occasional bandit, but other times your skills and service may be needed for something a lot more mundane, but no less important for society.”

Amber nodded. She reached up and pulled back her hood, letting the girls see her face – and the massive scar stretching across it. Entire patches of skin, stretching across her left eye, were withered and ashen, as if something had drained the life right out of her. The eye itself was devoid of color, the red-grey iris contrasting with the dark brown of its twin.

“The work I do is dangerous,” she said, raising her hands to her face to showcase her scar. “Sometimes I need to hire a Huntsman to guard me while I travel. Your headmaster has assured me that the four of you are capable students, and I would be honored to accept your aid.”

“Well,” said Yang, mollified. “You can’t get better than us, that’s for sure! We won’t let you down.”

“Stay close to her, girls,” said Ozpin, his voice taking on an authoritative timber. “Listen to all of her instructions, no matter how you may feel about them. As Huntresses, she is your charge, but as students, you are hers. Do I make myself clear?”

Ruby nodded. The others quickly followed suit. “Yes, sir.”

“Good!” Ozpin said, cheerful once more. “Stay safe and call for backup in an emergency. And most importantly, have fun!”

They waved as their headmaster left the auditorium.

Amber looked all of them over. “Well, you seem to be ready to go. Do you have any questions before we head out?”

“Just one,” said Weiss, stepping forward. “Where are we going today?”

“Well, there are only a few things that I needed,” said Amber. She pulled out her scroll and started tabbing through its screen. “There’s a soup kitchen opening up near the industrial district that I wanted to bring supplies to, and then we can head out to the forest. Does that sound good?”

Yang grinned, thrusting her left fist into the palm of her right hand excitedly. “We’re on the job, ma’am! This Mysternship is going to be great!”

“...Mysternship?”

_“Yang, we talked about this!”_

 

* * *

**Chapter Seven**  
**School Daze, Part Two**

* * *

 

Despite appearances, Nora was an early riser. She was up with the dawn, or sometimes before, well shy of the alarm Jaune set for himself. The early mornings were usually her time for peace and quiet, the time she used to prepare herself for the day. Calm was rare for her, so she made the most of it when she could.

Her teammates generally had their own routines. Jaune, as previously mentioned, set an alarm on his scroll. He’d initially been apologetic about the noise, worried that he’d be waking everyone else, and they’d all reassured him that they were all up well beforehand on the average day, and if they ever overslept, it would be good to have something already in place to keep them from racking up detentions for chronic tardiness. Ren slept later than Nora, but his mornings were regimented with meditation, his exercises, and the fact that no matter what time he chose, there was always a shower free when he went.

(If Nora hadn’t already known what his Semblance was, she’d have sworn Quantum Ablution Chronometrics was it. It was _uncanny._ )

Pyrrha was another matter. While she usually was out and about before the alarm, she still tended to wake up well after Nora had already been in and out of the showers (which were always completely empty before the 7 AM rush). She had her morning calisthenics, she inspected her armor and her circlet, and she’d finally agreed to using the remaining time to start watching Nora’s cartoons with her.

The last few days, however, when Nora pulled herself out of bed, Pyrrha was already gone. Armor cleaned, circlet missing from its cloth on the desk, cartoons unwatched.

She wasn’t avoiding everybody, at least; Nora and Ren took turns sitting with her at classes, and she and Ren liked to study together in the library after lunch, leaving Nora free to distract Jaune with homework, stories, pancake recipes – whatever she could think of.

Friday morning, Nora had nightmares. They came and went, and she was pretty much used to them by now. They were the usual sort – smoke, fire, Grimm – and while they weren’t nearly as bad as they were years ago, she still startled herself awake even earlier than normal. It usually took a brisk run around campus (or whatever town she and Ren had been staying in prior to their enrollment at Beacon) to get her mind back to the cheerful, happy, bubbly Nora that she vastly preferred to be.

When she pushed herself upright, fighting her way to lucidity, Pyrrha was already up and dressed, preparing for the day before anyone – particularly tall gangly blond team leaders without a filter between their brains and their mouths – noticed she was missing.

They stared at each other. Pyrrha’s hair was messier than usual, drawn hastily into a high ponytail, the normally cascading red waves now tangled and sticking out at odd angles. Nora’s hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, courtesy of the latest round of bad dreams.

Pyrrha’s eyes flickered to the clock, then to Nora’s hair, and finally back to meet Nora’s own gaze, her expression softening with concern.

Nora flapped her hand dismissively, exaggerating the motion for extra reassurance. _Don’t worry about me._ She pointedly glanced over to Jaune and back.

The walls went up. Pyrrha’s expression hardened, and she shook her head. So she wasn’t going to talk to Jaune today, either.

Nora sighed. Her inclination to leave things alone and let problems resolve themselves without her interference was warring with her desire to keep her team – her new family, really – from shaking itself apart. At the moment, the latter was winning. She gestured emphatically at Jaune, trying to convey with acrobatic semaphore that this was only going to keep getting worse if Pyrrha didn’t address it. It was no Atlesian Sign Language, but she thought she’d successfully gotten the point across.

Pyrrha shook her head again and raised her hand in a farewell. Without waiting for Nora’s response, she turned and walked out of the room, pulling the door closed with a click, as close as she could come to slamming it shut without waking up the rest of the floor. It was kind of the ultimate Pyrrha move, really, when Nora thought about it – stubborn, defiant, but still overly considerate of those around her. If somebody could say sorry for slamming the door while they were in the process of actually slamming it, that would be how.

Nora groaned and fell back onto her pillow. Getting struck by lightning was less frustrating than dealing with people.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the morning wasn’t much better. After half a week of playing CCT for her team’s well-being, Nora was looking forward to breakfast with the girls across the hall. Ruby’s team was as chaotic as Nora’s, and there was a reason they all meshed well with each other.

These hopes were dashed when she, Ren, and Jaune sat down at their usual table to find the RWBY girls long-gone.

Right. The weird Friday thing. Which meant that they wouldn’t be at any of their classes that day, either. Jaune stabbed at his breakfast, spearing bits of bacon and potatoes with far more force than necessary, muttering darkly about being left behind all the while.

Nora and Ren just stared at each other. It was getting worse.

“Hey, Jaune,” ventured Nora, “do you want to go hiking with me after class today? We’ve got Goodwitch until noon, and then we’re free for the rest of the day. Professor Peach needed more of that sap, and I was thinking ‘Hey, extra credit!’ What do you think?”

“Sure, we can do that.” He didn’t even raise his head, just continued to violently stab his breakfast and shovel it mechanically into his mouth.

“And then later we can finish up that history report in the library,” added Ren.

“Sounds great.” Stab. Munch.

“And then we can go do some combat training with Pyrrha—”

“You know, I think I’m done with breakfast,” Jaune said loudly, standing up from the remains of his meal. “I’ll see you guys at Goodwitch.”

He grabbed his bag and pushed away from the table, not quite storming off.

“You pushed too hard,” said Ren, going back to his breakfast.

“What was I supposed to do, let him chisel his way through the table?” Nora crossed her arms and hunkered down in a huff. “Our friends are broken, Ren.”

Ren didn’t respond.

She knew what he was doing, he was letting her vent and get the frustration out, and normally she appreciated that. Normally, it worked, because she’d calm down, either realize that it wasn’t worth getting angry over or that Ren was wrong and she needed to just cheerfully smash it with her hammer, and they’d all move on.

Things weren’t moving on. She didn’t know how to help.

“You know what I like about Grimm?” she asked, picking at Jaune’s discarded potatoes.

“...nothing?” asked Ren, giving her a cautious side-eye.

“Well, yes, _clearly,_ I absolutely loathe and despise them _like we all should,_ ” said Nora, rolling her eyes. “But I mean aside from that.”

“Aside from that. What do you like about them?”

“They’re big, evil, nasty, violent monsters from the depths of time, bent on killing us all.”

Ren blinked. “That’s what you _like_ about them.”

“They’re easy to understand!” Nora insisted. “They’re big monsters! I have a hammer! I hit the monsters with the hammer, thus kaboom, thus no more monsters!”

“Ah, right.”

“I can’t do that here!” She thumped the table, not actually breaking it this time.

“For one thing, you’ll be arrested.”

Nora blinked. “Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean hit them literally with my hammer. I meant it more metaphorically. Figuratively, even.”

“You want to _figuratively_ hit Jaune and Pyrrha with your hammer.”

_“Yes.”_

Ren sighed. “Not every problem can be solved by hitting it with a hammer, physically or otherwise.”

“Pfft,” snorted Nora derisively. “You’re clearly not hitting them hard enough.”

“...that’s fair.”

 

* * *

 

Yang was enjoying the day’s outing far more than she probably should. It was pretty neat, being down in Vale while school was in session. Sure, they could come down during the weekend, in the evenings, or pretty much any day that class ended early, but that wasn’t the _point._ They were in the city, doing official Huntress stuff. It was _awesome._

It was also a bit boring, but she could deal with boring. Boring was _peaceful._ It meant she was spending time with her sister and her friends.

They had taken a shuttle from Beacon down into the middle of the commercial district, where their charge had wanted to stock up on canned goods, clothing, and hygienic supplies to distribute to a couple of the shelters and soup kitchens spread throughout the city. Amber had tried to spread the bags evenly across the five of them, but that hadn’t lasted very long.

“I don’t really think it’s fair for Yang to carry everything,” Amber said as they reached the second drop-off point.

“She’s fine,” said Ruby, who had just been caught dropping an armful of fresh vegetables into Yang’s bag. “Last year, when Dad said he wanted to turn the guest room into a training room, Yang moved all the furniture out herself.”

“That doesn’t seem responsible of your father,” Amber muttered, shaking her head.

“Oh, he didn’t ask, I took care of it first.” Yang raised her fist into the air, flexing her biceps. The seven grocery bags on that arm swung with the motion, completely disregarded and providing no hindrance to her. “It was a birthday present.”

“Yang is very strong,” agreed Ruby, completely unnecessarily.

Amber sighed. “Well, alright, but that wasn’t really the point, the point was to share the weight evenly between us.”

“I really don’t mind,” Yang reassured her. “Load me up and point me in the right direction.”

“Also Dad threw his back out the week before and we didn’t want to let him try to lift anything,” said Ruby.

“Yeah. That too.”

Weiss blinked in surprise. “Wait. Your father wasn’t upset?”

“Why would he be upset?” asked Yang. “We did something nice for him.”

“When you took it upon yourself to change the layout of the house without consulting him first,” said Weiss. “I’d have expected him to be furious.”

Yang stared at her for a moment before she realized what Weiss meant. “Oh, no, he was thrilled! It meant he could get his tools out of the garage faster, he’d been meaning to do that the whole summer.”

“He was a bit miffed when Yang knocked a hole in the side of the house,” added Ruby helpfully.

“It was a _very small_ hole, and he helped me patch it right away.”

Weiss turned from Yang to Ruby and back. “You put a _hole_ in the _wall_ and he was ‘a bit miffed’?”

“Yeah,” said Yang. “I mean, it’s not like I blew off half the ceiling trying to reinvent Dust ammunition.”

“Oh my god Yang that was _one time._ ”

Weiss shook her head. “I just don’t understand. When Mrs. Brandt accidentally melted a serving platter, Father docked her pay for three months.”

Everyone fell silent, processing this.

“I mean, I’m not saying anything about your father’s parenting style,” she said hurriedly, noticing everyone’s expressions. “I’m just surprised that he was so lenient to that kind of property damage, it’s not what I would have expected.”

Yang and Ruby traded glances. “Accidents happen,” said Yang. “Our dad’s a Huntsman, and so was everyone else that lived with us. He grounded us, sure, and then he made sure to teach us how to fix it.”

Ruby nodded. “I can re-shingle a roof in my sleep now!”

“Oh.” Weiss fell silent, offering no further comment. She kept head down for the rest of the walk to the next shelter, though it didn’t appear to be out of shame. Instead, Yang realized, her teammate seemed to be deep in thought.

 

* * *

 

They broke for lunch after dropping off the last of the supplies. The staff at the shelter had been grateful, offering to make lunch for them, but Amber had politely declined. She hadn’t wanted to stay in one place for too long.

It made sense to Ruby. They were guarding her from forces unknown – or so Ruby assumed, at least, since Amber hadn’t actually gone into why she needed the escort through the city. Drop off the food and sundries, head to the next place on Amber’s list, go back to Beacon. Check to the first item on _that_ list.

That reminded her. “Hey, why was all this other stuff on the list?” she asked, waving to get Amber’s attention. “Like, food and clothes make sense.”

“Everything we brought to the shelter is something that’s desperately needed,” said Amber, giving a quick smile to Ruby. “Everyone knows that when you’re down on your luck, you need food, but nobody ever thinks about toothpaste, or toilet paper, or anything else like that.”

“Ohhhh,” said Ruby. That made sense, now that she was thinking about it. “I get it.”

“Nobody should have to choose between food and hygiene,” Amber added. “Especially women.”

 _That_ was a terrifying thought. And one that she’d need to remember if she was going to travel the world as a Huntress. There were many people who didn’t have as easy access to the things that she took for granted, living both at home and at a prestigious school, respectively.

They talked further about the shelters in Vale as they walked. Ruby learned a _lot_ about the system in place, things that she had never known and never thought to ask. Weiss asked a lot more than Ruby did, about how the system was structured and funded, which _mostly_ went over Ruby’s head. But, she figured, Weiss’s dad was a big business person, and Weiss herself would inherit the company one day, so these were the sorts of things that she needed to know.

The sorts of things that Taiyang Xiao Long taught his daughters were a lot less business-oriented, and a lot more about running a house, teaching at a school, and fighting monsters.

Different worlds for different girls, sort of thing. She did have to admit that it was fascinating, the kind of stuff that her partner thought of to ask, like taxes and fundraising and marketing. Maybe she’d ask Weiss about it more directly sometime.

It was weird, Ruby had never seen Weiss this animated when discussing her family or the Dust Company. She’d tried, every so often, and she could tell that Weiss was making an effort to reach out, but it always felt like the heiress was reciting from a magazine article, instead of talking about her own experiences, and she tended to shut down any avenues of conversation that ventured too close to family matters.

She was opening up freely now, having gotten a chance to talk about her interests and her strength without the shadow of her family looming over her. She was even _smiling_ when she was talking, and that was a rare enough occasion that Ruby absolutely noticed. Sure, Weiss smiled all the time, but they were the polite smiles of someone exchanging pleasantries in social situations. This smile was a lot more open, a lot more genuine.

As team leader, Ruby wanted what was best for her teammates, and Weiss was enjoying herself, talking to Amber, so when they stopped at a counter-service stall for food and Amber’s attention went to the bookstore out front, Ruby declared that she would stay and watch the entrance while the others made their way inside. It was a selfless sacrifice, not going into the bookstore and poking through the latest comics, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for the good of her team.

Besides, it meant that she could browse the carts just outside for the sidewalk sale, and finish her ice cream while doing so. Heavy is the head that wears a crown.

It was a burden, being the responsible one, but she’d—ooh, she didn’t have _that_ issue yet.

Her hand brushed up against another as she reached for the copy of Advanced Munitions Quarterly (the beach issue!), and she glanced up to scope out her rival.

She was tall, dressed in a sporty and strappy outfit in white, dark green, and brown, which offset her dark skin in a way that still managed to appear casual, despite being little more than a sleeveless half-jacket that left her midriff bare. Her hair was a light green bob, cut just about chin-length, save a pair of long braided tails that ran down her back.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Ruby responded. “Please, that one’s yours.”

“No, I couldn’t,” said the girl, backing up. Her red eyes were apologetic. “I was just looking, if you’re going to take that, go ahead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Ruby shrugged and grabbed the magazine. “Checking out the sale?” she asked, trying not to sound too awkward about making conversation with someone that she had practically knocked aside in her rush.

“More or less,” the girl admitted. “Honestly, I was just coming to check out the local bookstores. Do you live around here?”

“More or less,” Ruby echoed. She nodded her head back towards the bookstore. “I’m waiting for my friends to finish shopping. I still had ice cream left, so...”

“Can’t take it inside, I know.” The girl glanced over Ruby’s shoulder and froze. There was a flicker of _something_ in her eyes, Ruby couldn’t tell what, but the girl immediately pulled her scroll out and started muttering about the time.

Ruby turned around to see what the girl was looking at, but nobody was in front of the bookstore. The windows were clear, and she could see the various customers inside; Yang and Amber were pointing out magazines to each other, and Ruby could see Weiss over to the side studying the clearance rack like she was cataloguing strange new species of butterflies, or something weird like that.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, turning back, but the girl was already gone. The rest of the street was relatively empty at this time of day, so it wouldn’t have been hard to spot mint green hair in a crowd, but of the strange older girl there was no sign at all. The only movement that caught her attention was a dark-feathered bird making lazy circles in the sky above the street.

Huh. Guess she really didn’t want that magazine after all. Oh well. Ice cream finished and magazine selected, she headed for the door of the bookshop to pay for her new reading material. Her hand fished around in the pockets of her dress—

Oh no. _Oh no._ Where was her wallet?

 

* * *

 

Halfway down the street, Emerald Sustrai had her scroll out and was frantically swiping through the pictures she’d taken. There were pictures of Amber with each of the girls, zoomed snapshots of each of their faces, and as close as she could get to their weapons without being spotted. Suppressing Amber’s vision of her was draining enough on her concentration; if she’d had to affect five minds at once, she probably wouldn’t have remained conscious long enough to get the shots. Her hunch had proven true; the Fall Maiden was not only in town, but she was working with the school.

The final proof of this was in her hand; a Beacon school ID taken from the red leather wallet she’d lifted off the little girl by Tukson’s.

One more picture taken, and she batched all of them together in a text.

  **_We’ve got a problem._ **

The target knew their faces, and if she was involved with the school, they couldn’t infiltrate the school without the constant risk of being identified.

In any case, the damage was done, and it was a good thing that Emerald happened to be around to spot it. If she hadn’t been in the city at the right time, she might not have, and then everything would have fallen apart in Phase Two.

She dropped the magazine girl’s wallet off at the ice cream vendor, replacing the ID and leaving the lien cards untouched. It hurt, leaving all that behind, but it was for the good of the mission. The girl in red was too close to the target.

She went back to the hideout. Cinder would know what to do. She always knew what to do, even when things went wrong. She’d figure out how to change the plan so that they could still move forward.

 

* * *

 

The end of Professor Goodwitch’s class was always an invitation for open sparring, and Nora was surprised to see Jaune volunteer for it. Usually he waited for his name to be called, either by a student’s challenge or an assigned partner from Goodwitch herself. This happened more than most would think; Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha would frequently request to duel each other, both to keep their reflexes sharp and to help with their coordination in the field.

Jaune specifically almost never volunteered, and the rest of his team frequently called on him for a challenge to keep him off Goodwitch’s Short List. But today…

_“Jaune Arc, facing Garance Vin. Begin!”_

He was certainly motivated, Nora had to admit. From her vantage point in the stands, she could see the way he rolled under the other girl’s wavey-bladed greatsword, charging where he could and dodging out of the way of her counterstrikes.

“He’s gotten better,” Nora said cheerfully, nudging her seatmate. “What do you think?”

“Do you want my honest opinion?” Pyrrha responded. She had been waiting for them after breakfast, seated at the opposite side of the stands from Jaune. Nora and Ren had split up to keep them company, at the very least to avoid showing favorites.

“You already know what I want,” countered Nora. “If you’d rather sit there and pretend that everything’s fine when it clearly isn’t, I can do that.”

“What do you expect me to say, Nora? That our team leader is being standoffish and avoiding his responsibilities? That he’s obsessed with this self-image to the point of failure?”

“That’d be a start, yes.”

Pyrrha snorted. “Well, he is. I tried to reach out, and he made it very clear what he thought of my ideas of friendship, so the ball is truly in his court right now.”

On the stage below, Jaune had struck a blow to Garance’s head, knocking her aside with the flat of his blade. She parried his return strike with her flamberge, catching his weapon with her extended reach, spinning it out of his grip and scattering it across the floor. He had a choice to make now – would he go on the offensive, or fall back to recover his sword?

He hesitated a half-second too long, and Garance charged. He went flying, skidding across the tile floor, stopping himself just shy of the boundaries.

Garance reached back for the frame on her back, pulling it around and slotting her greatsword into it. She triggered some release mechanism, and the combined sword and sheath folded down from a flamberge to a flamethrower, which she used to lay a spread of literal covering fire across the gap.

“What do you mean, what he thought of your ideas of friendship?” Nora asked.  Pyrrha hadn’t told the others what Jaune had said to her when she’d gone after him earlier in the week, just that it had gone poorly. What could he have said?

“He was very specific,” said Pyrrha. “And who knows, maybe he was right. Maybe I am bad at being a friend.” She gave a rueful chuckle. “I wouldn’t know otherwise.”

_“What.”_

Pyrrha looked up, noticing Nora’s clenched fists. “See, that’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to ruin the rest of it.”

“Oh, no. No, you didn’t ruin _anything._ ” Nora gave Pyrrha a feral grin. It was the grin she had when she was slaughtering Grimm. It was the grin that Ren had dubbed The Fall Of The House Of Waffles. She cracked her knuckles. “No, I think it’s time that Jaune and I had a little _talk._ ”

“Please don’t—”

Nora held up her hand to forestall whatever it was Pyrrha had been about to say. “No, this isn’t for you. This is for me.”

Below them, Professor Goodwitch’s scroll beeped, signifying the end of the match. Jaune stood up, shaking, from outside the stage ring. He had been knocked out of bounds with the last fireball.

Goodwitch’s voice rang out, amplified throughout the stadium through a combination of acoustics and the carefully hidden speakers along the walls.

_“The winner is Ms. Vin, and with that the end of today’s matches. I will see you all first thing on Monday.”_

“I’m just going to talk to him,” Nora reassured Pyrrha. “That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Tell me not to and I won’t.”

Pyrrha sighed. “I just don’t want to make it worse.”

“You said it yourself,” said Nora, as she headed to the edge of the stands. “Ball’s in his court. I’m just going to make sure he’s aware of that fact.”

Pyrrha didn’t respond. That was approval enough for Nora’s purposes.

She dropped down to the stage level, making Jaune jump backwards in surprise. “Hey, we need to talk.”

“Not right now, Nora,” Jaune started to say, sliding his sword into his sheath. “I—”

“Nope! Excuses and evasion later. _Talking now._ ” She grabbed his shoulder and started dragging him away.

“Wait, where are we going? _Nora, where are we going?_ ”

 

* * *

 

Trying to fight against Nora Valkyrie when she had her mind set on something was like trying to fight a thunderstorm itself. Jaune was learning this the hard way, as every time he tried to break out of her grip, she dragged him along harder and faster. His heels dug into the grass of the courtyard outside the amphitheatre, carving long furrows into the dirt.

He gave up struggling after a bit, allowing himself to be dragged along, waving politely at the students who laughed as they passed. “Nora, can I walk? This is embarrassing.”

“Are you going to run?”

“...I can’t make that promise.”

Nora grinned at him. “That’s your decision, then.”

Jaune sighed. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“Hold your horses, we’re almost there.”

She pulled them into a small grove, off the side of the dorms. It was quiet, but not too out of the way, containing a few picnic benches and wastebins for public use. In most other circumstances, it would be cozy.

Nora plopped him down onto one of the benches and stood in front of him, her hands on her hips. “Alright, Fearless Leader. You’ve avoided the subject long enough, and Ren and I were fine letting you and Pyrrha deal with this on your own, but it’s clear to me that’s not happening.” She leaned down and poked him in the chest. Knowing how strong Nora was, and how angry she seemed at the moment, it was probably a good thing he was still wearing his armor. “Talk. To. Me.”

He turned his head and feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jaune~?” Her voice had become dangerously sweet. “How long have we been teammates?”

“A… couple months now?”

“And in this time, have I ever proven untrustworthy?”

Jaune glanced back. Her smile reminded him of nothing more than a Beowolf, in that it was less of a smile and more her showing him all of her teeth at once. “No.”

“Then stop pretending I’m stupid,” she snapped, crossing her arms and leaning back upright. “Whatever feud you’ve got with Pyrrha, it’s tied to the whole issue with Cardin and his lackeys. You got your feelings hurt when she came and rescued you.”

He felt a stab of guilt, but the fires of indignant fury quickly replaced it. “You’re oversimplifying the situation.”

“Have we met? Hi! I’m Nora. I like things nice and simple.” She shook her head. “It’s not really all that complicated, either. Your macho self-image took a beating, so you’re taking it out on other people, and that needs to stop _right now._ You can’t be so concerned with how other people see you.”

Jaune laughed in her face. “Really? This coming from _you?_ The person who’s so cheerful all the time?”

“I am cheerful because I choose to be,” she said. “Not because of what anyone else wants me to be. I am cheerful, and I am friendly, and I am a gods-damned _delight_ to be around, because that’s the Nora Valkyrie I want to be. I tried the other way, and I really didn’t like it!”

“So, what, you just choose to be someone different?” He scoffed. “That really is so easy, yeah, I _absolutely_ believe that.”

“Do you think I don’t know exactly how I come across to other people?” Nora shook her head. “I know _exactly_ what people think of me, and if I didn’t, all I’d have to do is listen to what Cardin says when he thinks I’m not listening!”

“Are you trying to tell me,” asked Jaune, finally realizing that he could stand up and look Nora in the eye, “that you don’t care what he says about you?”

“Yes! That’s what I’m saying.” She poked him in the chest again to drive her point home. “Ten years as a refugee will do a lot for your humility. If you think I can be ashamed of what that clown says…”

Just like that, his rage was gone, snuffed out by the realization of what Nora was saying. “Refugee?”

“Yes! Where do you think Ren and I came from?”

“I…” He sat back down, trying to remember what they’d all talked about when they were assigned to a team together. “I didn’t…”

Nora’s tirade slowed to a stop. “Oh, Jaune,” she said, shaking her head sadly. She sat down on the bench next to him. “Of course you didn’t know. You know, you never even asked us about ourselves?”

He tried to recall any of their conversations about themselves. They were, he realized, all about his own family, and his desire to be a hero. “I thought that when we talked about why we became Huntsmen…”

“We learned all about your goals, but you never asked us about ours,” Nora finished. “Or about our homes. And that’s fine, I figured they’d come up in conversation. We’ve got four years together, right? That’s a lot of time to get to know each other.”

They sat together for a while as Jaune tried to reconcile this. “I guess I have been a little focused on myself lately.”

Nora held up her thumb and forefinger. “ _Just_ a bit.”

“What am I supposed to do, though? If someone—”

“Cardin,” Nora corrected, interrupting him.

“Tries to push me around—”

“Infringes upon your fragile masculinity, yes.”

“And someone—”

_“Pyrrha~!”_

“Jumps in? Isn’t that proving that I can’t take care of myself?”

Nora reached up and patted him on the head. “Silly Jaune, you still don’t get it.”

He pushed her hand away. “Get what?”

“It’s not about your feelings, doofus.”

Jaune groaned. “Gee, thanks, Nora, that really solves everything.”

Nora shook her head. “No, listen. We’re a team, right?”

He blinked in confusion. That… was what they’d both been saying this entire time, yes. “Right…”

“So that means we’re a _team._ ” She beamed at him, acting as if that explained everything. It really didn’t.

“I’m not following.”

“Ugh, pay attention, then!” She held up her hand, palm out forward, and pulled in her thumb, putting her other four fingers on display. “We’re all doing this together. If something happened to one of us—” She curled one finger down, leaving three standing. “—it might not look like it affects anyone else, but it’s the _team_ that suffers.”

She bent down and tried to pick a stray leaf off the ground with the three fingers of her hand. It kept slipping through her grasp.

“That’s why we work _together,_ ” she continued, relaxing her hand and waggling all her fingers happily in Jaune’s face. “We support each other, and we _trust_ each other, and when we work together…”

Her hand _blurred_ towards the ground, and she held the leaf up triumphantly.

Teamwork. It sounded so simple, especially the way that Nora described it. Which was the point, he realized. He’d been so focused on trying to fit in that he was neglecting the people he was fitting in with the most.

“That… makes way too much sense,” he found himself saying, slumping down on the bench.

“Told you,” Nora said with a wink and a smile. “Simple, not stupid. Life’s a lot more obvious than most people think it is.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

It did make sense, though. Too much sense. He’d been pushing so hard to become a hero that he’d lost sight of what a hero was supposed to be. Would a hero push his friends away just to appease his own ego? Would a hero insult the honor of the one person who came to defend his own?

No. That wasn’t what he was supposed to be about. That’s not what an Arc was supposed to do. His grandfather wouldn’t be proud of him right now.

“...I was wrong,” he said aloud. “ _I’m_ the one who sucks at being a friend.”

There was a flicker across Nora’s face, a dark look in her eyes that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. That was worrisome; perhaps Pyrrha hadn’t shared exactly what Jaune had said to her after all.

“Maybe,” she said after a moment. “But that shouldn’t stop you from making it right.”

“No. No, it shouldn’t.” He stood up from the bench and extended his hand to help Nora up to her own feet.

She pulled herself up and held onto his hand for just a moment longer, clasping it with both of hers. “You’ve got this,” she said, patting the back of his hand sympathetically.

“How?”

“That’s up to you. I can’t help you with that. Apologies have to come from your heart, and you’re the only one that knows that.”

Jaune let go of Nora’s hand and slumped forward dejectedly, his shoulders hunched in despair. “Because I’m _so great_ at that.”

“I believe in you.” She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back upright, straightening his posture with the sheer force of, well, Nora. Satisfied, she reached up and patted him gently on the top of his head. “You’re our leader for a reason. You need to suck it up and figure it out.”

“Really?”

She gave him a double thumbs-up. “You’ve got this,” she repeated. “Just… do me a favor, alright?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“When you talk to Pyrrha, ask her about her friends back at Sanctum.”

Back at…? “What do you mean by that?”

Nora had already turned and was walking back towards the school. “Just trust me,” she said, over her shoulder. “And don’t screw it u~up!”

 

* * *

 

The afternoon was relatively quiet. Jaune wandered around campus, taking the time to think about everything that Nora had said. The nature of teamwork, and the dynamics of trust between partners. How he had pushed Pyrrha away, and what he might need to do to apologise.

The Arc clan was fairly large, with family branching multiple directions at every level. Jaune himself had seven sisters, and if any of them settled down and started families of their own, the clan would continue to grow exponentially. With so many people, regardless of whether or not they kept the name or married into other lines, communication was the most important aspect of keeping everyone together.

The second most important part was the nature of apologies. With so many people, conflict can and did occur. Resolution meant that everyone had to be clear on what constituted an apology, and what did not; an Arc was only as good as their word, after all, to paraphrase the family motto. _Vincit Veritas_ , in the archaic Atlesian once spoken in the Mantle of old. Truth prevails.

When you screwed up, you made it right. That was how it worked. You identified what was wrong. You acknowledged that it was wrong, and the harm that it did. You repaired the damage, if possible, and made the effort to ensure that it didn’t happen again. This was the backbone of the apology, the way that it was clear that your word was sound, that the apology wasn’t hollow.

Forgiveness didn’t factor into this at all. That was separate; forgiveness was the prerogative of the wronged party. You didn’t apologise to be forgiven, you apologised because you know what you did wrong.

All of this was running through Jaune’s head as he walked. He knew, on the most basic level, what the apology needed to be. The next step was to figure out _how._

He found himself, as he so often did, in front of the fountain. The statue in the courtyard that had first grabbed his attention on his first arrival at Beacon, the one that had initially intimidated until Ruby’s perspective had given him a new appreciation for it.

The girl that was two years his junior yet his closest peer, in terms of being team leaders, had an understanding of her role in the universe that was unshakeable, and Jaune respected that. Ruby knew who she was. She knew exactly what she was about. It was inspiring, really, even if it was still embarrassing that a fifteen year old had her shit together far more than he did.

The statue towered over him, as it always did when he came by. The two Huntsmen stood victorious above the prostrate Beowolf, standing proudly in their defense against the encroaching darkness. Moreover, they stood there together, a team joined together, stronger as a whole than the sum of their parts.

Yeah. Ruby was right.

“Hey, Jaune!”

Speaking of whom…

“Hey, Ruby,” Jaune said, turning from the fountain to see the girls walking up from the airship landing. Some of them had shopping bags. “How was the thing?”

“Not what I was expecting,” said Ruby, making her way up to the fountain to talk to him. The others waved and continued on to the dorm without her. “It was a lot of fun, and it was good to be out and about before it gets too cold.”

Late summer was turning into fall, and while winter wasn’t on fast approach, the elevation up in the mountains was tricky like that. “Yeah, I can imagine,” he said. “What did you guys do?”

Ruby winced. “I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to talk about it. At least out in the open.”

“Really? It’s that much of a secret?”

“Well, I mean…” She glanced around furtively. “There are people around, and Professor Ozpin made it clear that this was a very special circumstance.”

Jaune gaped at her. The secret thing that their two teams were doing every week went all the way up to Ozpin? “Ruby, is this really something we can handle? We haven’t even finished our first year.”

“What? No, it was totally fine. It’s right up your alley, honestly.” She grinned up at him. “I’ll tell you all about it after dinner.”

“Alright, I’m holding you to that,” Jaune said.

“Honestly, I’m just glad I got my wallet back.” She patted the pockets on the side of her dress happily. “I thought I lost it, and everyone else was in the bookstore and didn’t know where it would be, and Weiss said to look where I left it last, and Blake said that didn’t make any sense because if I knew where I left it last then it wouldn’t have been lost, and Weiss said no just retrace my steps so I did and it was at the ice cream place.”

She held up a red leather wallet triumphantly. It was embossed with the same stylized rose pattern that was on her belt buckle.

“It’s good you found it, then! That would have been really awkward.”

“I _know!_ So I bought Weiss ice cream to thank her, and she said only if I promised to never call it Weiss Cream ever again.”

“Oh, definitely,” said Jaune, making a mental note to call it that as often as possible. Hey, _he_ never made any such promise.

A pained shout grabbed their attention. Ruby leaned around Jaune to see what was going on, and every ounce of cheer seemed to vanish on the spot. “Oh, great,” she said, her voice dripping with ice. “And then there’s this jerk.”

Jaune turned around. Behind him, Cardin and his terror squad had surrounded a girl, trying to walk in peace from the cafeteria to the dorms. She had a tray that had been covered up until the point that Russel snatched the top away. She was hunched over, her arms encircling the tray as best she could to protect the contents, which proved unsuccessful as the other boys were grabbing bits of food off if as they danced around her, stuffing it in their faces before she could react. Her ears were folded back against her head, long and brown to match her hair, and she pushed forward as best as she could.

“Where are the carrots?” Dove was asking, poking at the tray. “I thought you were supposed to eat carrots.”

“Please, just leave me alone.”

“Hey,” said Jaune, “isn’t that Blake’s friend?”

“Velvet,” Ruby confirmed. She clenched her teeth, setting her jaw, and reached back for the weapon that had yet to be returned to the school’s armory. “She’s way too nice to deal with those goons.”

Jaune shook his head. Every time he’d tried to stand up to Cardin on his own, he’d failed. Only Pyrrha’s presence had made the bully back down last time, and that was just Cardin. Against the whole jerk squad, he didn’t have a chance.

He also didn’t have a choice.

  **Step 3: Be a hero.**

He took a step forward, about to make a beeline over to the bullies. “Hey—”

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. It wasn’t rough, but it was firm and resolute.

Jaune was not small for his age. He may be all knobbly knees and elbows, but save for Cardin himself, he was the tallest of the entire class. Only Pyrrha came close to his height, and she still wore heels most of the time. Six feet and gangly, but six feet nonetheless. When he looked over to see who was holding him back, however, he had to look up.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with tanned skin and dark eyes, the boy shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

Next to him was a smaller girl who had taken the concept of a school uniform as more of a guideline than a rule; her jacket had been cut short, letting the white of her blouse offset the black and gold, and the pleated red skirt had been replaced with an A-line red tartan over sheer black leggings. The beret and sunglasses likewise weren’t part of the standard issue.

“I appreciate the thought, kid,” said the girl, dangling her handbag over her shoulder casually, “but we’ll take it from here.”

She sauntered over to where CRDL were tormenting the faunus girl, her heels clacking loudly against the concrete. The boys looked up to see her approach.

“Coco!” shouted Velvet with great relief, her ears perking up.

“Well, hel _lo_ there,” Cardin began, but Coco raised her finger to hush him.

“Shh. No. We need to talk. Would you be a dear and hold this?”

She shoved her handbag into Cardin’s face. He grabbed it reflexively, and Coco let go of the handle. The bag dropped like a stone, pulling Cardin down with it, until it crashed onto his foot with a loud thump. He cried out in pain, but before he could let go of the handle, Coco raised her leg and, almost far too casually, placed the sole of her stylish leather boot directly onto Cardin’s fingers, trapping him in that awkward position.

“Fantastic,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a compact mirror. She flipped it open and started to adjust the wisps of her hair that were artfully framing her face.

Sky and Dove glanced at each other. They started to move towards Coco, potentially in an effort to pull her away from their leader, but another pair of hands – dark skinned and scarred – dropped onto their shoulders. The last member of Velvet’s team pulled them away and held them, his orange-red hair standing out against their muted brown and grey.

“It’s come to my attention that you and your lackeys have been harassing my dear teammate,” Coco continued, tilting her head back and forth to check the angle of her beret in her reflection. “That’s not really something that I can easily accept. I’ve been meaning to have this talk with you for a while now, but Velvet – dear, kind-hearted Velvet – didn’t want anyone to get in trouble. Isn’t that sweet of her? Just groan in pain if you agree.” She pressed her foot down on Cardin’s fingers.

He stifled a grunt. Coco nodded, seemingly satisfied with this response.

“Wonderful. Your team is loyal to you, and I respect that. I am extremely loyal to my team as well, and if Velvet says that she doesn’t want any trouble, then there won’t be any trouble.” She snapped her compact shut and slid it back into her pocket. “Unfortunately, I have a medical condition. I seem to lose bits of my memory when I see my team being harassed.”

She sighed dramatically. “It’s a chronic condition, I’m afraid. Saw plenty of doctors about it but there doesn’t really seem to be any cure. So, I do think that we may need some reminding from time to time. Does that make sense to you? Just say aaaargh.”

“You bi—aaargh!”

Coco stopped grinding her boot. “Lovely! We understand each other. Now, apologise to Velvet.”

“What?”

Coco leaned forward, resting her elbow on her upraised knee. “Apologise. To Velvet.”

“I—augh! I’m sorry!”

“And?”

“And we won’t do it again.”

She lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose and glanced up at Velvet, who was cowering over to the side. “Velvet?”

“It’s… it’s fine. I just want you guys to leave me alone.”

“We will! We’ll leave you alone!”

“We have a deal,” said Coco. She stood back up and took her foot off Cardin’s hand.

He let go and hobbled backwards, clutching his fingers. “I’m not going to forget this,” he warned.

“Please don’t,” Coco responded. “After all the trouble I went through to say hello, I’d hate for there to be a loss of memory.” She leaned down and gingerly plucked her handbag off the ground, completely unaffected by the weight that had held Cardin down. “Of any sort.”

Cardin looked like he was about to say something, but thought better of it and ran. His teammates hurried after him.

“Thanks for staying back,” said the mountainous upperclassman standing by Jaune and Ruby. He nodded politely and went over to join the rest of his team.

Jaune and Ruby watched them all leave. “Who was that?” asked Jaune, staring after them.

“ _That,_ ” Ruby said, in just as much awe as Jaune was feeling right then, “was Velvet’s team.”

“Her team is _badass._ ”

“Oh yeah.”

He watched them leave. Teammates who looked after each other, not having to worry about having to stand up for each other. It was almost effortless, the way they had arranged it.

“Ruby,” he said, “after dinner won’t be good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, alright?”

She grinned. “Alright! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fix a mistake.”

 

* * *

 

The library was usually empty during dinner, and the librarians didn’t mind Pyrrha bringing food in. She was always careful to keep the tables clean, the books away from food, and to tidy up after she was done. The fact that she was also doing schoolwork helped.

Ren had joined her once or twice since she started taking her meals elsewhere, keeping her company without judgment or reprisal. Nora had offered as well, but everyone agreed that it was probably for the best that she kept her food away from the books.

It was stressful, staying apart from the others, but she did what she had to do. She trained, she kept up with her schoolwork, and she avoided people. It was a familiar routine, and in other circumstances, she might have been worried how quickly she was able to fall back into it.

She focused on the history of the fall of Fort Castle, one of the turning points of the Faunus War that Oobleck had assigned for next week’s classes. The military leader in question was petty and shortsighted, which cost him everything. It was engrossing material, in fact, the description of the defensive placements taking up most of her attention. She reached over absently for another bite of food, and her hand brushed up against another plate. One that she hadn’t brought.

There, in the place of her turkey sandwich, was a slice of red velvet cake, fresh from the kitchens. Seated on the far end, across from her, was Jaune. He waved bashfully at her.

“Good evening,” she said, icily.

“Hey.” He pointed at the cake. “I thought you’d want dessert. They had your favorite.”

She raised an eyebrow, staring him down. He flinched under her steady gaze, but notably didn’t back down. “How do you know what my favorite cake is?” She was more curious than annoyed – she was certain that it hadn’t even come up in conversation with Nora.

“You don’t usually go for desserts,” he said, giving a weak smile, “but you’ve never turned that one down.”

Huh. “How did you know I was here, anyway? Did Ren tell you?”

Jaune shook his head. “Had a hunch. You’ve always done your training in the morning, and homework after dinner, and I thought you’d just make it efficient.” He nodded at the textbook in front of her. “I don’t always think things through, but I try to pay attention.”

“Alright. I can accept that.” She closed the book and rested her elbows on the table in front of her, leaning forward into her clasped hands. “What do you want, Jaune?”

“I screwed up,” he said. So he was going to cut right to it, then. That suited her just fine. “I was so concerned about my pride that I forgot that you weren’t trying to show me up. You were just trying to help me, and I should have seen that.”

She nodded. “You made it very clear that you didn’t need me around.”

“Well, I was wrong.” He leaned back in his chair. “I was selfish and I lashed out because I was hurt, and I didn’t even consider your feelings. You know, I never asked you about yourself?”

“I’m aware.”

“Well, I wasn’t! Nora had to point it out to me. I didn’t even think about it!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “So, I want to start over. And I know that you don’t owe me anything, but if you do want to give me another chance, I’d like to show you that I’m going to be better about all of that.”

Pyrrha lowered her hands. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I want to get to know you better. As my partner and teammate, and hopefully as my friend. Is that okay?”

“Alright. Where do you want to start?”

He paused, his eyes flickering down to the ground while he thought about it. “What were your friends like at Sanctum?”

That… was not a question she was expecting. “I’m sorry?”

“You were popular, right? What were your friends like?”

Ah. So that’s what Nora talked to him about. She made a mental note: never make Nora angry. She was _vicious_ when she was angry.

“Well, that’s the thing,” she said, picking her words carefully to make sure she didn’t say the wrong thing here. “I… didn’t really have any friends at Sanctum.”

Jaune froze. “What? What do you mean? You’re _Pyrrha Nikos,_ you had to have had friends.”

The door was open. No choice but to walk through it. “You know all those tournaments? The training, the ceremonies? Even the commercials?”

“I thought people would have loved you for that.”

“They did,” she said. “I was surrounded by people who loved my championships, who wanted me to sign autographs, who followed me for pictures all over town. I had to keep up appearances, and smile fake smiles, and recite speeches.”

She picked up the fork and carefully carved off the edge of the cake in front of her. “I didn’t have friends, I had fans. Nobody actually knew me for me, they knew the girl on the cereal box. The girl on the CCT. They knew the medals.”

“...I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Jaune looked stricken. Not by her words, but at the implication. She could see that he was making the connection.

“That’s why I don’t know how to have friends,” she finished. “I don’t know where the line is because I’ve never done any of this before. You know, you were the first person I met here at Beacon who didn’t know who I was.” She speared the piece of cake with the fork. “Ren and Nora did, but they also didn’t change how they treated me when they found out. And until a few days ago, neither did you.”

She shook her head. “You’re my teammate, Jaune. And you should know that I always have your back. Against Grimm, or against Cardin.”

“I know.”

“No. That’s not all. I need to know that you have my back too.” She stabbed at the cake again, not even taking a bite. “If we can’t communicate, we can’t work together. This is a partnership, and it has to be equal.”

She was really making a mess of the cake. She kept poking at it, too upset to even take a bite.

“Pyrrha, I…” He fell silent, his expression sorrowful. “I’m sorry. I really, truly am. And now I know exactly how much. I’m not going to pretend that everything’s okay, but now I know better. And I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?” she asked, and once again she was more curious than accusatory.

“Will you train me? Like you offered before?”

He really did mean it, then. She fought down the urge to smile, however, because she was still angry with him. “You come to me, after accusing me of being a bad friend, and your method of apologising is to ask me for a favor?”

“Yes,” said Jaune, with absolute conviction. He didn’t fall for the bait, even for a second. “Because that was the start of all of this. You wanted to help me, and I took offense to it because I thought that meant that I couldn’t stand on my own. But when the chips were down, you came to help me because you cared about me, even though it brought the attention onto yourself instead of me.”

He stood up from the table. “I watched Cardin get his ass completely handed to him today by someone defending her teammate from him. Nobody thought it was bad. Velvet didn’t accuse her of being a bad friend, because she was being a fantastic friend, and so were you.” He rounded the table and stood beside her. “So yes, my problem was not accepting your help, and this is how I’m fixing it. If the offer is still there, I would like to accept any help you’re willing to give me.”

“You really mean that,” she said. It was not a question.

“I do,” Jaune answered. He held out a hand. “Please teach me how to throw Cardin into a door so hard that his parents will feel it, because that was _awesome._ ”

She got up from the table and turned to face him, hiding a smile as she moved. She nodded, taking his proffered hand…

...then reversed her grip, pivoted on her heel, and flipped him over her shoulder and _slammed_ him solidly down onto the library floor.

The librarian glared at her from the front desk. “No fighting! Take it outside!”

“I’m sorry!” Pyrrha called, but softly.

“...me too,” Jaune groaned from the floor.

Pyrrha extended her own hand. “I accept your apology,” she said, pulling him to his feet. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you yet, though.”

Jaune rubbed his shoulder, wincing from the pain. “I’ll try not to interpret it that way.”

“Good.” She gathered her books and picked up her discarded plates, stacking the ruined mashed cake on top. It was still good, if a bit… deconstructed. She’d still be able to eat it, just not inside where the crumbs will get everywhere. “Then let’s go outside and we can try that again. Your stance was all wrong. You need to keep your knees loose and be ready to shift your weight to counter.”

“Noted.”

Jaune followed her outside, grinning despite the pain, and Pyrrha couldn’t help but to smile back. Things hadn’t been fixed, not yet, but they could work on that together.

 

* * *

**CCT Movie Database** **  
** **_City Heist_ **

Atlas Soldier Vern McShane (Spruce Willis) attends a holiday party in Mistral with his wife Brooke, where she works in a large firm. When the building is taken over by White Fang terrorists, McShane finds himself in the perilous position of being the only one not taken hostage. Loose in the air vents, alone, and with no hope for police backup, McShane is forced to take matters into his own hands.

_– CMDb Plot Synopsis_

**Genres: Action, Thriller**

**Rating: 9/10**

**Trivia:** No digital special effects were added to the movie, though Spruce Willis reportedly had a feud with one of his stunt doubles and insisted on performing most of the fight scenes himself. The film was boycotted by Faunus Anti-Defamation Societies for its depiction of the White Fang, which at the time of filming and initial release was primarily involved in peaceful protests and demonstrations. Despite the controversy, and despite its mid-summer release, this movie is a winter holiday favorite with a cult following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing says friendship like a metaphorical hammer to the face!


	8. Caws and Effect

In other circumstances, Qrow would find being in the Ironwood Forest hilarious.

It wasn’t actually named after the Ironwood he knew. At least, he was pretty sure it wasn’t – James was native to Atlas, born and raised. It was far more likely that the Ironwood family took its name from the geological phenomena itself. Petrified wood was in abundance near places of tectonic shift, where once great forests were now deserts or wastelands and the remains of trees had been fossilized by the changing waterline, and could be found all over the world.

Less common, however, were the entire forests that had been turned, part and parcel, into stone. These sites were rare, and well-documented when they were found. Scientists hadn’t figured out why they existed, with only an offhand theory about extreme Dust exposure, as these locations were frequently accompanied by the discovery of enormous Dust deposits, littering the forest floor like bizarre crystalline undergrowth. Attempts to mine deeper were met with frustration, as the Dust only extended a short distance underground, leaving any deeper mine shafts barren and unprofitable.

They were also, for reasons unknown, places of increased Grimm activity.

“‘Take a regular mission near Vacuo,’ they said,” Qrow muttered to himself as he bisected an Alpha Creep that had launched itself at him from the stone branches. How it had gotten up into the treetops on two stubby legs, he had no idea, but it hadn’t stopped him from taking it out with a quick swivel of his scythe. “‘It’ll be relaxing,’ they said.”

That was the Ironwood Forest, though. Unyielding, shallow, and likely to bite your hand off if you weren’t careful.

Fuck it, it was still hilarious.

The mission was simple; clear out the current infestation of Grimm near the science expedition. One of the non-Huntsman universities near Shade was researching the petrified forest at the edge of the Vacuo desert, right between where the great forests of Sanus shifted to savanna. The Ironwood – and he’d have to find another thing to call it soon because _that_ was confusing enough – was near one of the larger ancient ruins of the old world, and the scientist in question had a bee in her bonnet about the two being possibly connected.

Qrow didn’t really care, the job was the job. Clear the section of the forest, protect the eggheads, bring ‘em back through the desert to the capital. Ideally, get paid for the whole venture; universities were known for being either incredibly generous with their money or painfully tight-fisted, there was no in-between.

The clack of chitinous legs against stone announced the presence of a pair of Deathstalkers, their deadly stingers flashing out towards Qrow, faster than most could see. He parried the first and dodged the second, leaping into the air and running along the underside of the tail, his momentum completing the centrifuge and keeping his footing sure and steady. As he approached the base of the tail and the body of the giant black-armored scorpion, he let his scythe trail behind him, kicking up sparks as the tip of the blade skittered across the surface of the Grimm. There was a minor tug as it found purchase, but he kept hold of the handle and allowed gravity to aid him in pressing on, and the blade dug in and carved a great rend in the Deathstalker’s flesh, filleting it neatly all the way to the white and red skull plate. Thick black smoke filled the air as it discorporated.

A flash of gold was his only warning to twist his weapon up in defense. He hooked Harbinger’s handle behind the curve of the second Deathstalker’s stinger, halting its strike barely inches away from his face. The force of the blow pushed him back several feet across the dusty ground, his feet creating furrows in the dirty red clay underfoot as he skidded to a stop.

Shit. It was taking everything he had to hold the thing back. He managed to push the stinger aside, darting the opposite direction as the tail thrust forward into the space his head had just vacated. He triggered a burst of the twin cannons to help change his trajectory, and brought the scythe around to lop the tail off at the source.

He was a fraction too late. Not because the Deathstalker counterattacked, but because someone else beat him to the punch.

It wasn’t so much of a sound as it was a feeling, the kind of bass rumble that sends a distinct vibration through the chest far more than the actual sound. It accompanied the rending of space-time directly in front of Qrow, a swirl of void that pushed itself into existence while at the same time tore directly at the intervening space. It was red and black, and it was the second-most familiar sound to him in the entire world. He would know it in his sleep.

A black and red blur exited the singularity, flashing across the Deathstalker’s tail, severing it neatly. The figure held a red blade, made entirely of compressed Dust, drawn swiftly from a multi-chambered sheath that Qrow knew was filled with similar blades in all shades of the rainbow. A Dust blade for every situation.

Qrow drove the point of his scythe into the Deathstalker’s skull and emptying both barrels at point-blank range. The Grimm shrieked as it died, disintegrating entirely into a plume of black miasma.

“What do you want?” he asked, as he returned Harbinger to its folded-down travel form and slung it back in its holster on his back.

The portal closed, leaving its creator standing in the stone forest, resting her shoulder against the trunk. She re-sheathed her blade, sliding the red Dust home with a final click, and removed her bone-white mask. It was patterned with red swirls and featured four eyeholes, one pair stacked on top of the other. The effect was two-fold: If an assailant was to take advantage of the weakness in the armor, they still had a fifty percent chance of actually guessing which eyeholes were real and which were disguised and reinforced from underneath.

The other effect, especially when paired with the red and black clothing, was to instill fear. For when the chips were down and all was said and done, despite friction between human kingdoms or relations with the faunus, there was nothing so terrifying across the board as the concept of facing a creature of Grimm.

Qrow knew that lesson well. While he hadn’t dressed that way for battle in decades, it was a familiar concept. The White Fang used the same tactics, to great effect.

His sister, Raven, finished removing her mask and rested it against her hip. “Is that any way to say thank you, brother?” she chided.

He changed his mind again. It was hard to find anything funny right now.

 

* * *

  **Chapter Eight  
** **Caws and Effect**

* * *

 

The eggheads had set up camp in the valley to the south, just on the edge of the forest. They’d arrived by road, pulling trailers behind their pickup trucks that carried sensors, computers, surveying tools, and all sorts of other things that Qrow really didn’t care about. The camp was protected by a sheer cliff face to the east, and they’d encircled the camp they’d set up right up against the rock wall. Four trailers were arranged in a semicircle, the doors all facing inward, with a large campfire in the center and multiple devices set up all around camp.

One of the trailers was a mobile CCT relay, which helped the scientists connect to their labs back in Vacuo uninterrupted. It was also the most heavily defended, with three Atlesian Bulwark automated turrets set up around the perimeter. Defenses like these would help in a pinch, and in theory would be able to hold their own against the occasional Grimm wandering nearby, but mostly they were used to buy time. The nature of Grimm attacks, especially for civilians unsuited for combat like these, tended to be exponential the longer they went on. The fear and panic the initial wave sparked would draw in more, and the camp would eventually be overrun.

By then, of course, the Huntsmen that they’d hired to tag along would have held off the attacking Grimm long enough for the scientists to finish packing up the camp and leave. The turrets would either be destroyed, or left behind to split the attention of the invasion while the scientists made their escape. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, and certainly wasn’t the cheapest – Bulwarks tended to run in the quadruple digits – but it was definitely one of the most effective. Escort missions like these were popular with the Academies, and it was not uncommon for second or third year students to take these as a team.

The sun was setting as Qrow approached. The camp was bustling with activity, as the scientists and their hired guards were all sitting around the fire, winding down from a long day’s work. A pot of beans hung suspended over the fire – apparently one of the researchers was feeling a bit rustic today, as the trailers included a fully-stocked kitchen, tiny stove and all.

One of the scientists noticed his approach and made her way over. “Mister Branwen! Pull up a log, why don’t you?” Her ash-blonde hair was threatening to break free of her ponytail, and her wispy bangs kept falling in front of her glasses as she talked. Sinoper Rust was the lead researcher for this expedition, and the one who had made the request to the Hunt Boards in Vacuo. She was usually far more composed than this, and was clearly celebrating some breakthrough or another.

“Maybe later,” he said, holding up his hands to forestall any further requests. “I found a whole nest of Deathstalkers out there and it’s been a day.”

“Oh, come on,” Dr. Rust pleaded. She swirled her mug idly, and the scent of whiskey wafted over even as far as Qrow was standing. Yeah, definitely celebrating. “We’re telling stories, and I bet everyone twenty lien that you had some fantastic ones. Being a Huntsman and all.”

“Oh, I’ve got stories,” Qrow admitted with a chuckle.

“Stellar! Come, join us!”

He shook his head. “Rain check, Doc. I need to hop into the workshop and check out my blade. The servos were acting up out there.”

“Oh, fine,” said Dr. Rust, huffing in annoyance. “Twenty lien down the drain. Could have split the money with you, but _noooo._ ”

“Expense it to the school,” Qrow offered, making his way past her and heading for the trailer closest to the cliffside. “Call it a consulting fee.”

“Maybe I will.” She took a sip of her mug and nodded towards the forest. “Who’s your friend?”

Qrow hesitated, his foot halting in mid-air. He straightened out, trying to play it off as a stumble. “I’m sorry?”

“Her,” said Dr. Rust, pointing. Qrow followed the finger to see the large raven perched on one of the trucks.

“Oh, that’s a dusty old crow that followed me back from the forest,” he said. “I was going to toss it some food and hope it goes away.”

“That’s not a crow, that’s a raven.”

Qrow took a short breath. This was a whole continent and a half away from his sister’s stomping grounds, so there shouldn’t have been any reason to worry, but. But. This would be just his luck.

He forced himself to play it cool. “How can you tell the difference?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s simple,” said Dr. Rust. She held out her other hand and spread the fingers, waggling them like the tail of a bird. “The different shapes of their tail feathers. For that matter, they have a different number of them, too. Crows have three, and ravens have four, but that’s mostly just a matter of a pinion.”

She kept her composure for a good five seconds before breaking out into the loudest giggling he’d ever heard from someone that short. “A pinion, Mister Branwen!” she choked out, snorting as she struggled to keep herself upright. “Because the tail feathers!”

“I got it,” Qrow reassured her. “You’re drunk, Doc.”

“I am _not_ drunk,” Rust insisted, “because _I_ am a _scientist._ ”

Qrow shook his head and continued on. “Alright, just save some for me. I’ll come back out and celebrate with you guys after I fix my weapon.”

Dr. Rust’s face lit up like it was her birthday. “Fantastic!” she repeated. “And then some stories? You promised!”

“I did no such thing,” Qrow protested.

“Worth a shot. And speaking of shots, we’ll save some for you.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

Dr. Rust nodded, then made her way back to the camp. She wasn’t so far into her cups that her gait could be described as ‘tottering’, but Qrow knew a lightweight when he saw one, and it wouldn’t take that much more to push her over the edge.

Must have been a big breakthrough. All the better to hold off that conversation until later.

He went to the workshop trailer, poked his head inside to make sure it was clear, and held the door open just long enough for the raven to fly inside. One last sweep of the area and then he followed, closing the door behind him.

“Is that actually true?” asked Raven, leaning casually against the workbench. She had her mask in her hands and was playing idly with the chips in the ceramic.

“What, the feather thing?” Qrow dropped his blade on the table and opened it up. He hadn’t actually been lying about needing to service Harbinger, after all; it just happened to also be a convenient excuse to avoid public scrutiny. “I have no idea. Probably not, I think we’d have noticed by now.”

“Isn’t she a scientist?”

“She’s a _geologist,_ ” Qrow clarified. “And three sheets to the wind, at that. I’m surprised she knows what birds _are_ right now.”

He dismantled the blade from the actuators and started fishing around inside the machinery. It looked like one of the clockwork gears had warped, probably had been like that for a while now. He tried to remember when the last time was that he’d defended himself against massive heat.

Oh. Right.

He pulled the gear and started trying to bend it back into shape. He’d need to machine a replacement next time he was in a city, but he could get it into serviceable condition in the meantime. Enough to keep it from locking up when shifting forms, at least.

Raven pushed off from the bench and started poking around the trailer. “Cushy job you’ve got here, brother. Mobile transmitter, travel-sized machine shop…”

“Job’s a job,” said Qrow, leaning in to inspect the trigger assembly. “Why are you here?”

“So callous. Can’t a girl visit her family without having an ulterior motive?”

“A girl can, but she hasn’t, and I doubt she’d be willing to start now.” He sat up straight and stared his sister down. “Why are you _here?_ ”

“Why are you?” Raven countered. “I thought you were supposed to be babysitting a Maiden.”

“It’s an on-again off-again post,” said Qrow. The damned thing was gunked up again. He started hunting in the drawers for some sort of industrial solvent. “Currently off-again, as a matter of fact, as evidenced by all of this.” He gestured vaguely with his left arm.

“Clearly.”

“Why do you care? I thought you were done with all of this. Took your toys and went home.”

“I care,” Raven growled, bristling with fury, “because Ozpin can’t leave me and mine well enough alone.”

There was a clatter as Raven tossed her open scroll onto the table. Qrow sighed and looked over at it.

It was a picture of a storefront in Vale, taken from a rooftop across the street. Bookstore, by the look of it, and Qrow could see Ruby picking through the outside displays for the sidewalk sale.

“Last I checked, she wasn’t one of yours,” he said, tapping the screen pointedly.

“There are more,” was all he got in reply.

He swiped through the camera roll. There were more pictures of the bookstore, but this time they were zoomed in to look through the window. Inside the store, amongst the other customers, was his other niece, happily bringing new acquisitions up to the register. Clustered around her were two other girls around her age, each with their own purchases. Behind them…

Oh. _That’s_ what she meant.

“Keep going,” Raven demanded.

He kept flicking through the pictures. Yang with Amber outside the bookstore. Ruby grabbing her wallet from the ice cream stand, Amber behind her. Pictures from all over the city.

“Did you know about this?”

“Did I know about what?” Qrow shook his head and started reassembling the blade. “The girls have a neat team dynamic, you have to admit.”

“Ozpin is putting my daughter in the line of fire!” Raven hissed.

“Tai’s daughter, you mean?”

Qrow’s words had exactly the effect he’d expected. Raven’s fingers twitched near the hilt of her sword, and her fury was palpable. “Choose your next words very carefully, dear brother,” she intoned, biting off every word as if each was an individual dagger leaving her lips.

“You went back to the tribe, Raven. That was your decision, not Tai’s, and not Yang’s. Punishing her now won’t solve anything.”

Raven glared at him. “You know the laws just as well as I do. She gets one favor before she comes of age, and then she’s on her own.”

Qrow laughed. “Stalking her with a camera counts as a favor?”

“The Fall Maiden is a target,” said Raven. “Ozpin is putting my daughter in harm’s way, and stopping this here and now is my right.”

“Oz assured me they were safe,” said Qrow.

Raven stabbed her index finger towards Qrow, holding it up in front of his face. “Rule One: The Wizard Lies. Always.”

“If you thought Yang was in immediate danger, you would have stepped in already.” Qrow reattached the blade to the handle and tested the actuators. They slid smoothly into place, extending the weapon from its compact form to the full-length greatsword. “The fact that you’re here, now, means that you think he’s onto something and you want to know what.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I left because I didn’t want to be one of his pawns. I don’t appreciate being dragged back in.”

“This isn’t the same game as before, Rae.”

“Isn’t it?” Raven grabbed her scroll back and flicked through the pictures, before handing it back to him. “Then tell me you don’t recognize the players.”

It was the first picture again, Ruby outside the bookshop, sifting through the racks set up on the sidewalk. Qrow looked closer, despite his annoyance. “I don’t know what you expect me to see, but it’s not—”

 _Wait, no._ He zoomed in on the picture and centered it on the window. Yang’s hair was visible inside the shop, but he wasn’t focusing on that. Instead, there was something caught in the reflection, just behind Ruby’s mirror image.

Mint-green hair, dark skin, red eyes. Not in view of the camera directly, but clearly shown in the window’s reflection, walking up to the racks outside.

Fuck.

“That’s the thing,” Raven continued, satisfied with Qrow’s startled recognition. “You play Ozpin’s game, you’re doing great until you realize he’s playing something else entirely.”

She took her scroll back and pocketed it. In almost the same motion, she grabbed her sword, drew it, and sliced open a vortex through reality. “Every single time. Remember that the next time you agree to let the children play Huntress.”

Without waiting for a response, she stepped through her portal, and suddenly Qrow was alone in the trailer.

The door opened, and Dr. Rust poked her head inside. “Mister Branwen?” she called, her darting about the inside of the workshop. “I heard a noise, is everything alright?”

Qrow retracted Harbinger’s blade once more and slid it into its frame on his back. “Peachy, Doc.”

He sighed. The assassins were moving faster than he thought. That was why the escort, after all; they wouldn’t dare attack in the city in broad daylight, and definitely not where witnesses would be. The girls may be green, but they could hold their own, and the Schnee at least would have the sense to call in for backup.

He shot Oz a quick text with his own scroll, then shook his head. “I’ll take that drink now, if that’s alright.”

 

* * *

 

It was, Roman acknowledged, a very good thing that their hideout was kept refrigerated, even despite the falling temperatures as they headed into mid-autumn. The lease was paid off and the bills were paid, keeping power running directly to the HVAC as needed to the Blue Mantle storage facility. They were hoarding Dust, not ice cream, and while that didn’t need careful freezing…

“What do you mean, _this isn’t a problem?_ ”

...some things were just necessary to live in comfort.

“I mean just that, princess,” Roman said, ignoring his better judgment and walking over to the corner where Cinder and the Trouble Twins were ensconced. Ever since the little thief had done her little scouting mission and brought back a bunch of bad news, they’d been holed up with their scrolls and maps, frantically trying to make sense of the wrench that had been thrown directly into their plans. “The plans were volatile from the start. One tiny thing changing won’t send the whole thing tumbling down unless you’re really dedicated to that kind of disappointment.”

“What would you know about it?” Emerald groused, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, kid,” assured Roman. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to have to adapt on the fly and still bring home the bacon.” He gestured towards the growing pile of Dust crates that now filled half the entire warehouse. “Exhibit A.”

The warehouse doors were open, and the new hired hands were hard at work, unloading crates from whatever truck they’d knocked over this time around. He squinted as he tried to make out what it was: was that an armored truck?

It was. It was an SDC-marked armored gods-damned truck, it really was. Good for them. Roman had his reservations working with the White Fang, but Neo’s contact had been true to his word, sending his best – if not quite his brightest – henchmen to replace Hei Xiong’s red-suited rejects. Turned out animals could be trained, after all.

Perched on the edge of her desk, Cinder glowered at him. Her hand was raised in the air, and the flickering flame of her fury finally found its moment to fizzle out for good. This only enraged her further. “If you’re not going to help, what good are you?”

“If I’m not going to—?” Roman trailed off. He gestured again towards the growing hoard. “Me and the boys here have been up to our eyeballs, getting every single speck of Dust in the entire kingdom for you. That ain’t easy, sugarcakes, and need I remind you, it’s _the job that you hired me to do._ If Murderfoot Junior and Little Miss Stickyfingers aren’t holding up their end of the bargain, that’s not really my problem, is it?”

Cinder’s eyes flashed, and her hand burst into flame once again. “I could make it your problem.”

“That would be great, actually,” Roman said. “If you want me to do more than my fair share of miracles here, you’re going to need to pay up.”

Mercury snorted derisively from the wall he was currently leaned up against. “Half a million lien isn’t enough for you?”

“On top of the Dust you’re already selling to the black market?” added Emerald. “We know about all of that.”

“Wasn’t trying to hide it,” said Roman. “We’ve already got more than enough for what you originally quoted me. And money isn’t my concern here.”

He leaned forward on his cane and pulled out his cigar case. It was almost empty; he’d been on back to back jobs with the new hands on deck, overseeing the last few robberies. “Information’s the currency of the day, kiddos. You want me to help, you’re going to need to tell me what for.”

He grabbed his last cigar and started hunting around for his lighter.

Cinder reached out her hand and lit his cigar with a smoldering fingertip. “Oh, Roman. You’ll know what you need when you need to know.”

Roman laughed. “Great! Then when it all falls apart, and you ask me what went wrong, I’ll be genuinely able to say ‘Gee, boss! I don’t know what happened.’”

Cinder growled in anger, reaching up with her flame-wreathed hand to grab his face, but the fire flickered out again before she could reach him. She drew back and started shaking her arm, trying to get the fire back. “No, no no, it was there, it was working, it was _there!_ ”

Mercury and Emerald closed ranks, standing between Roman and their leader. “Time to step off, gramps,” Mercury warned.

Roman raised his hands defensively. “Consider it stepped. Just, let me know if she’s going to do that again in public, alright? She’s upsetting the guests.”

He glanced over to where the White Fang grunts were stacking the crates. “Hey! Big ones on the _bottom,_ small ones on the _top!_ It’s like you’ve never bagged your own groceries before.”

Emerald crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side, annoyed. The twin rat-tails of hair poking out from beneath her chin-length bob whipped back and forth. “So what’s your big solution, then?”

“I don’t _have one_ yet, genius.” Roman brought the handle of his cane up to tap against the brim of his hat. “If I had a solution, I’d need to know what the problem is. So…”

He held up a scroll with his other hand. It was not _his_ scroll, of course; that one was still on the inside pocket of his coat.

Emerald’s hands flashed to her pockets, searching for the scroll that she quickly found to be missing. “Hey! Give that back—”

Her arm shot out to grab the scroll out of his hands, but was restrained by a flash of pink-on-black. The handle of Neo’s parasol caught Emerald’s wrist and swivelled around, trapping her arm behind her back.

A shimmer of light revealed the rest of Roman’s assistant, where she had been standing ever since he’d gone to talk to his benefactors. The fact that none of them had known she was there was… well, it wasn’t _troubling,_ really, since he’d been banking on that exact outcome, but it did speak volumes about how distracted they all were. A thief and an assassin, both experienced and whose skills Roman acknowledged despite their age, should not have been caught off-guard by an illusionist whose Semblance they had already known was a factor.

Mercury reacted immediately to Neo’s presence, swinging his right foot up in a vertical kick to bring the barrels of his heel cannons to bear against her. She responded by smoothly unhooking Emerald’s wrist, replacing the handle of her parasol with her hand. In the same fluid motion, she ducked low and extended her reach, hooking the back of Mercury’s left ankle with the handle and yanking upward, depositing him flat on his back. She reversed her grip on the weapon and pointed the tip at him.

He started to push himself upright, but stopped when the stiletto blade extended from the tip of her parasol, stopping right at the hollow of his throat. He glared daggers at Neo, who was gazing placidly back down at him, but made no further attempts to press his attack.

“Thank you, Neo,” said Roman, flicking through Emerald’s scroll. “Things might have gotten messy, with all this Dust lying about.”

Neo rolled her eyes, retracted her blade, and released Emerald from her grip. There was no immediate reaction to this, so she picked up her discarded clipboard and went back to organizing the new arrivals at the loading dock.

Cinder had not even reacted to all of this, muttering quietly to herself as she kept trying to ignite her fingertips. She was finding mixed success.

“Alright, kids, it’s been an awful lot of fun, but it’s time to take this seriously.” Roman held the scroll facing outward, letting Emerald and Mercury see what was on the screen. “Now, you’re paying me a lot of money for this job, so I’ll overlook the tantrum.”

“You’ll _overlook_ — _?_ ”

“Out of the goodness of my heart,” Roman confirmed, interrupting Emerald’s outburst. “And, because we’re _such good friends,_ I’ll give you some advice for your nefarious schemes.”

“You’re a two-bit hustler,” Mercury scoffed, pulling himself back up to his feet. “What would you know about grand schemes like this?”

Roman chuckled. “This is why you’re having such problems! It’s not a grand scheme, it’s an _outline._ You achieve one goal, then the next, then the next, and you keep pushing forward. If one part fails, you don’t give up. You drop that point, cut your losses, and keep working on the next gig.”

He tapped one of the pictures Emerald had taken in her foray scouting the city. “It’s all in how you look at it. You boil it down to the base elements. You get the tools, you get the manpower, and boom, you get the goods. Everything else from point A to point B can be worked out in the minor details, but you solve one problem at a time.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point, Foxtrot, is that you’ve already got the tools you need for this job.” Roman gestured behind him, where Neo was directing the White Fang goons in unloading the massive crates of Dust from the next truckload.

Mercury shook his head and laughed. “You’re a street-level crook, Torchwick. You don’t know anything about a high-profile assassination like this.”

“This isn’t an assassination at all,” said Roman. “It’s a _heist._ I’m _good_ at heists.”

He snapped Emerald’s scroll shut and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly and started pointedly cleaning it – purely to show her distaste for Roman, since he was wearing gloves and thus had left no smudges on its surface at all.

“Knew we shouldn’t have asked,” Mercury muttered. “You’re full of—”

“He’s right,” Emerald interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

She slipped her scroll back into her pocket. “We’ve been looking at it from the same angle as the last time we went for the Fa—” She gave a hurried glance to Cinder, still huddled in the corner. “—the _target._ That was an open field, with minimal risk, almost no witnesses. That was an assassination.”

She pointed at the map on the wall – specifically, the eastern section of Vale that contained Beacon Academy. “This is different. We were setting up a distraction for an assassination, but what we really need to do is to remove the target from her protections. Get her away from guards, and security, into a place where we can act more directly. Torchwick’s right, it’s a heist.”

“Em, are you sure about this?” Mercury’s voice was pitched low, not accusatory, but out of caution.

She nodded. “This is my turf right now, not yours. He might be an asshole, but he knows what he’s talking about.”

Roman grinned. “Guilty as charged.”

Emerald ignored him. “This is the right move.”

Mercury let out a long breath. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Alright, then.” He turned back to Torchwick. “Okay, old man, you’re up. Show me what you’ve got for us.”

Roman grinned. This was going to be _fun._

 

* * *

 

Scientists were many things. Obsessive. Intelligent. Frequently (but not exclusively) socially awkward. They were also fantastic at kicking back and having fun at the end of an honest day’s work.

After a chorus of pleading requests made its way around the campfire, led by Dr. Rust herself, Qrow had broken out the whiskey.

The scientists, for their part, brought the stories.

“Okay, okay, here’s one,” said a stocky bat-eared man who studied the effects of radio waves on various wavelengths of Dust micro-radiation (or something along those lines). “So, you know about the Big Glorp, right?”

Qrow shook his head. “Not a clue.”

“Oh, man, you’re going to love this.” The faunus spread his arms in front of him, his fingers curled around an imaginary object he was holding in front of him in the nigh-universal gesture of ‘sit down, get a load of this’.

One of the scientists next to him started poking him in the shoulder. “Tell him about the Glorp, Clem.”

“I’m telling him, I’m telling him!” said Clem, waving him off. “So okay, about twenty years ago, this oceanography station outside of Mistral picked up a weird sound, right? Nobody had any idea what it was, drove the community crazy for like ten years.”

He flipped through his scroll and hit play. There was a low rumbling sound, barely audible over the background noise of the clip, but Qrow squinted his eyes and paid closer attention. The rumble sped up for a moment, then continued in a series of staccato bursts.

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“Right?” Clem nodded along. “But wait, when we sped it up…”

He tapped a couple times and hit play again. The rumbling had been sped up, and the staccato bursts turned into a series of rapid-fire clicks, like gunshots.

It did, in fact, sound like something that Qrow would define as a “glorp”.

“Okay, let me rephrase it,” said Qrow. “What the _hell_ is that?”

Clem snapped his scroll closed and beamed at him, looking as proud as the cat that had finally caught the canary. “That, my dear Huntsman friend, is the Big Glorp. The scientific community argued for _years_ about what it might have been. There were all sorts of people talking about aliens and tectonic shift and everything in-between.”

“I think I remember something about that, actually,” Qrow said. He rubbed his hand across the stubble of beard on his chin. “Wasn’t there something about a giant underwater Grimm involved in that?”

“That was something that the public had latched onto around then, yeah.” Clem shook his head. “Big hullabaloo on the call-in shows about people worried about colossal Grimm making landfall on all the coastlines. But no, that wasn’t it.”

“What was it, then?”

“Well, the prevailing theory was, as I said, tectonic shift. Big geological impacts underwater sending out a low-frequency sound, and water distorts soundwaves by a _lot_ but it also carries it forever, so by the time it got to Mistral, it was, well…”

“The Glorp.”

“Right!” Clem nodded, his ears twitching happily. “And that was a lot closer to the truth! Director Häcksler had an expedition to the southern part of Old Mantle, and there was an entire cliffside castle that had just… fallen into the ocean.”

Qrow frowned. Southern Solitas, near the old kingdom… that sounded familiar. “Twenty years ago, you said?”

“Yeah, just about. Probably closer to eighteen or nineteen, the expedition said. They were doing resonance scanning on the cliffside, where an entire part of the mountain had just broken off. Like a miniature earthquake or something, but with like _precision focus._ ”

Heh. Precision focus miniature earthquake. That was a good one, he’d have to make sure to tell Tai. “I’m guessing they never found the cause?”

“Not really,” said Clem. “Remains a mystery to this day, but at least they found out what made the Glorp.”

Qrow started chuckling. He couldn’t contain himself; to think that one of their old missions had made the scientific journals…

“Mister Branwen?” asked Dr. Rust, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, this is gonna be good. Okay, so, I might be able to shed a little light on that one.”

Clem gave a derisive snort. “Really? You hadn’t even heard of this, and you’ve got an answer to a question the entire scientific community has been working on for the past twenty years?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. He pointed at Rust. “Sin. Looks like you’re going to collect on that bet after all.”

_“Yes!”_

“Wait,” said Clem, suddenly unsure of himself. “What’s happening right now?”

“Storytime, Doc. Pull up a… a log, I guess.” Qrow reached over and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. “So my old team had been tracking this herd of Nykur across the tundra…”

 

* * *

 

It was later. Drinks had happened. Some of the research team had tried to match Qrow shot for shot as they swapped stories. Not all of them had managed to keep up.

Sinoper Rust was one of the few that Qrow hadn’t drunk under the table. She’d stayed awake and mostly upright even as Qrow himself was fighting to keep his eyes open.

“So what I don’t understand is,” she was saying, only slurring a little bit, “why a Huntsman such as yourself with all of your past accomplishments would slum it with a bunch of nerds on a field trip.” She poured herself another shot. “If you’re even telling the truth, that is.”

“Why wouldn’t I be telling the truth?” Qrow asked in mock offense.

“You single-handedly sheared the Menoetian Shelf off the face of the mountain and dropped a piece of the continent directly into the ocean, because of an insurmountable Hydra infestation that would have threatened all of Solitas if you hadn’t intervened,” Rust recapped. “Forgive me if I find that a bit hard to swallow.”

“I told you, Tai found the shatterpoint and broke the cliffside. My teammates dealt with the Hydra’s heads and I just kept the rest of the Grimm corralled until the castle fell. That was all.”

“‘That was _all,_ ’” Rust repeated in a mocking tone. “Pff. _Huntsmen._ ” She downed the shot and stifled a cough. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Qrow leaned back, catching himself when he remembered that the log didn’t have a seat back and barely refraining from toppling over backwards. “Gotta pay the bills somehow,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, either. Like with Raven, he deflected to a similar enough track that the conversation didn’t feel derailed. “The flashy jobs are high-profile, but they’re not as common as most people think they are. Most times it’s a search-and-rescue or an escort like this one.”

“We weren’t even sure we were going to get an escort,” Rust mused. She peered at him skeptically out of the corner of her eyes. “Director Häcksler had initially requested an Atlas detail, but the University shot that down. Too pricey and we couldn’t risk the media attention.”

Qrow blinked in surprise. “Häcksler? The Glorp guy?”

“The same. He funds a lot of research into old ruins.”

“The ruins are outside the forest, though,” said Qrow.

Dr. Rust grinned at him. It was a magnificent shit-eating grin, full of mischief, screaming ‘I know something that you don’t’. “You’d think that,” she said. “But that’s not exactly true.”

She laid her scroll face-up on the log between them and activated its projector. The air became filled with wire-frame lines, shifting and molding into a three-dimensional model of a section of the forest. “We took a resonance scan of the surrounding area yesterday, and the software just finished compiling it today. Take a look at this.”

She stuck her fingers into the projection and started pulling on the frames, zooming in on the hill they were currently camped out behind. She manipulated the image, and a second series of wireframes layered themselves underneath.

“That’s a wall,” he said, staring at the image.

“Exactly right!” Rust expanded the section and removed the outer cliffside. “Buried somewhere over here is a part of the ruins that don’t seem to connect to anything. Take a look at the battlements there, that’s stonework of an entirely different style.”

“I’m not an architect,” said Qrow. “That looks like a wall to me.”

Rust sighed. “I won’t bore you with the details, then. But trust me, it’s not the same kind of wall. It’s a lot older.”

Qrow turned to face the cliffside in question. Somewhere in _there_ was something of major historical importance. No wonder Oz had sent him. “And this resin–... reso–… scanner thing picked up it was there?”

“Resonance scanner, yes.” She tapped a button and the wireframe started filling in. “We had the algorithm take a guess at the composition; we’d have to actually start excavating it to be sure, and we don’t have the funding for that.”

She paused. “Yet,” she corrected. “Though when we turn this in to the board, that might not be a problem anymore. We’ll be able to come out here with a full crew. Isn’t that amazing?”

Qrow had stopped paying attention, focusing instead on the rotating piece of wall in front of him. There were symbols carved in the stone, an odd language he didn’t recognize… but why did it still look so familiar to him?

“I’ve seen that somewhere before,” he muttered.

“Wait, what?”

“Those markings.” He pointed them out on the projection. “I’ve seen them before.”

Rust scrambled to her feet and practically skipped over to one of the workbenches. She came back with a notepad. “Where? How? What were they? Tell me _everything._ ”

“I have no idea,” he said, scratching the back of his head.

“Mister Branwen!”

“I’m telling you the truth, Doc,” he protested. “I know I’ve seen it somewhere before, but I can’t remember where.”

Rust sighed. “That is supremely unhelpful, you know.”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m just a guy who fights monsters.”

Rust grumbled as she put her notepad away. “You shattered Solitas with your mighty fists, slayed all the Grimm in the continent, and you’re familiar with ancient runes from prehistoric civilizations. Convenient that all of these things happened after we’ve all spent the night drinking in celebration.” She grabbed the empty bottle of whiskey and tossed it into one of the trash barrels lining the camp. “I knew I shouldn’t have bothered to ask you.”

He watched her leave the fire and head for her bunk in the eastern-most trailer. She’d sleep it off, he knew, and she’d either remember it in the morning or she wouldn’t. That wasn’t what was important here.

The holographic projection rotated in the air in front of him, silent proof that something bigger was happening. Oz wanted this expedition to succeed. That was important. The rest of it?

He copied the image into his own scroll, then shut the projector down. He’d drop her scroll into the trailer before he went to bed himself, making sure that one of the guards stayed on watch before he did so.

“Believe what you want,” Qrow said to the open air. That much whiskey in him, he wasn’t entirely certain if it was meant for Rust, or himself. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

 

* * *

**Know Your Enemy  
** _With Professor Port_

**Nykur**

Beware, students, the Grimm of the waters. Many Huntsmen and Huntresses have perished fighting in the marshlands of Anima and the great springs of Solitas, as the creatures that lurk there will quickly turn even the most prepared predators into prey.

Too many have overestimated their capabilities of fighting in the water, as swords lose their stopping power and firearms will jam. The wetlands are unforgiving, and their inhabitants are crafty.

Take the Nykur, native to both continents. Great skeletal horses, they stand out as unnatural in an open field, yes? But in the foggy murk of the springs, they lure travellers into danger. You may be travelling through the springs when you see a light in the distance. You approach, but it dances just outside your grasp. Too late, you see that you’ve stepped off the road, and in the mist, you aren’t quite sure where you are. The lights have led you astray, and you panic.

Soon, it approaches. A beast of burden, you can take this and ride out of the marsh, hoping to find a town, or an outpost, somewhere you can regroup.

By the time it reaches you, it’s too late. A Nykur is fast, and it can run for hours. If you manage to outrun it, you won’t be able to outlast, and it will track you down. A Nykur doesn’t have claws, or fangs. It will drag you into the marsh and drown you.

And if by some chance you make the mistake of trying to ride it, it will trap you on its back.

That’s why I carry two weapons at all times, students, and remember: If it’s not the horse you rode in on, it’s fair game.

Happy hunting!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When two Branwens are in a room together it counts as an attempted murder.


	9. Pride vs. Prejudice

“Your next trip out with Amber is _this_ week, right?”

Weiss glanced up from her reading, thankful for the distraction. The library was quiet at this time of afternoon, and while she was making headway in her studies, she was growing increasingly uneasy.

History class was going well, sure. No complaints there. But the current subject matter… it wasn’t helping her anxiety any. Faunus civil rights was a hot button topic back at home, to the point of being all but forbidden. Her father had never explicitly stated that he didn’t want to hear about it, but…

_(to think the filthy things were under my own roof)_

...well, sometimes it was just easier on everyone not to.

“That’s right,” she said. She looked around for her teammates, but the abandoned bags and the empty chairs suggested they were off finding new reading material for the day. That just left her alone with Jaune, who had tagged along when he’d heard that team RWBY was off to study.

He was behaving himself, at least. In fact, when Weiss thought about it, she realized that he’d been fairly subdued and introspective for the past week and a half. He hadn’t tried to ask for a date _once._ Yet here he was, talking to her on even footing.

Well, she did say she was going to try to be nicer. Jaune was clearly making an effort at some sort of self-improvement regime, and the least she could do was match his own momentum.

“How did your last outing with her go?” she asked, after only a brief hesitation.

“It was weird,” said Jaune. He frowned. “There was a blood drive up at the clinic on Gillikin, over by the marketplace?”

Weiss blinked. “Is that what that building is? I thought it was a warehouse.”

“It used to be,” Jaune confirmed. “A doctor bought it a few years back and started his own practice, for the dock workers and other people who can’t afford the big hospital.”

“That’s… that’s really good,” said Weiss. She glanced down at her books, her eyes not really focusing on the words.

“It is, isn’t it?” said Jaune, oblivious to her returning unease. “So they had a blood drive on Friday, right? And Amber signed up to volunteer, and suggested that we do the same.”

“You weren’t actually drawing blood, were you?” asked Weiss, horrified.

“What? No.” Jaune shook his head. “No, there were plenty of other things to do. We helped people fill out their forms, showed them to the exam rooms… mostly, we went and brought coffee to the nurses and snacks to the donors. Blood sugar, you know.”

“Huh.”

He nodded. “Then we went out to the forest and walked around and talked for a bit until we came back. Rescued a jogger from some Grimm, that sort of thing.”

“She said we’d probably be doing some of that this week, too,” said Weiss.

“What do you think this is all for?”

“Experience, Ozpin said.” Weiss frowned as she thought about that, however. Professor Ozpin did say there would be requests of Huntsmen and Huntresses that didn’t fall in line with most people’s expectations, and though she was planning on returning to Atlas after graduation, she’d still be a Huntress. She’d be asked to do things to help the populace beyond the scope of the Dust Company.

She’d known about the shelters and soup kitchens before, and she’d heard that there were people who couldn’t afford the best doctors. However, knowing about it academically and actually seeing it for herself? Those were two very different things.

Maybe that was the point.

She sighed and turned her attention back to the table. Faunus civil rights movements. Yup. That was the assignment, and that’s what she’d be working on. Personal feelings didn’t need to get in the way of her top grades, after all.

She glanced at Jaune’s unfamiliar textbook. “What’s that you’re working on?” she asked. “Is that for Grimm Studies?”

Jaune blinked, glancing back down at his book. “This? No, I’m doing something for my team right now.”

Weiss just stared at him. “You’re copying notes out of a weird book for your team and it’s _not_ schoolwork?”

Jaune held up the book and let her see the stylized painting of a Huntsman fighting a pack of Gryphons on the cover. “I’m running a Grimm & Garrisons game for them. Team-building exercise, you know? I’ve got the next bit of my campaign ready to go but I just need to flesh out a couple of these encounters before the next session.”

“...what?”

“You’ve never played? Oh man, it’s so much fun, it’s like this whole collaborative storytelling game, but you actually get to play characters and fight monsters.” He held up a sheet of notes; it was covered top to bottom with scribbles in a rough outline, with a series of numbers in the margins that didn’t seem to connect to anything he was talking about.

“A storytelling game,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “With math.”

“Well, yeah,” said Jaune. “There’s dice involved too, and it’s just. It’s really fun.”

He glanced around, suddenly mindful of his volume in the otherwise quiet library. “I know it sounds really silly, but Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren all seem to be having fun. I have to be careful with it though, because I’m used to running for my sisters, so going down in party size from seven to three has been an interesting challenge, from a GM point of view.”

Weiss started looking around for where her teammates may have gone. “Right…”

“You know, if you and the others aren’t busy one night, that’d bring us up to seven!”

“That’s… certainly an accurate statement of numbers.” She closed her textbook and stood up from the table. “You know, I think I hear Ruby calling me.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Jaune, craning his neck around to try to see what Weiss was looking at.

“What’s that, Ruby?” Weiss bluffed. “Meet you back at the room? Well, alright, if you say so.”

She gave Jaune as sincere an expression of apology as she could fake. “Sorry, team business, you understand.”

“Team business, right,” said Jaune dejectedly. He went back to his notes. “It’s okay if you’re not interested, really. Just let me know if you change your mind, alright?”

“If I ever change my mind about this,” Weiss said with complete conviction, “you will be the absolute first to know.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Nine  
** **Pride vs. Prejudice**

* * *

 

The streets of Vale had a particular energy to them. The shopkeepers were decorating their storefronts. Civic workers had ladders and motorized platforms out in force, dressing the lamp posts and traffic signals with ribbons and banners alike. Even the populace were in good spirits, commuters and locals alike, going about their day with smiles on their faces and springs in their steps. The city was bustling, in short, and it was highly infectious.

Ruby gazed up at the decorations in amazement. A pair of city officials were up on Main Street, hanging a welcome banner across the thoroughfare. Welcome, it proclaimed in a friendly sans-serif font and jovial color scheme. Welcome to the Kingdom of Vale for this, the 40th Vytal Festival.

The Vytal Festival was something she looked forward to every two years, even though she’d only been able to see the broadcasts up until now. Mostly the CCT networks focused on the Huntsman Tournament, the main focus of the entire event. There were scorecards, sponsorship deals, and all sorts of generic Kingdom and Huntsman Academy merchandise for sale – Ruby had a box in her closet filled with green Vale banners and a resin statuette of the Amity Colosseum, suspended by a clear plastic frame over a stylized base in Vale’s green and gold, the laurel wreath and crossed twin axes displayed with pride.

There were laws against merchandise made of the student participants without specifically licensed compensation, but that didn’t stop the underground trading card community. Yang had tracked down an older card in near-mint condition and paid three months’ allowance for it just to present to their dad for his fortieth birthday. He was suitably embarrassed but, at Qrow’s insistence, grabbed a marker to make it the world’s only Authentic Signed Taiyang Xiao Long, with stats that were at _least_ twenty years out of date.

(It was still framed and on the wall of the den back home.)

It was going to be great, seeing it up close this time. It was going to be even better participating.

Ruby waved cheerfully at the workers putting the sign up. They waved back. It was that kind of day.

“This is going to be the last outing we have in the city for a while,” said Amber, leading them to the next stop on their route.

Correction: It was that kind of day for _almost_ everyone.

“What?” Ruby nearly dropped the box of blankets she was carrying. “Why? Aren’t you excited about the Festival?”

“I’ve always enjoyed it,” said Amber noncommittally. “Watching it on CCT broadcast is a highlight, and I’ve made a point to see every tournament. It’s just that, well…”

She glanced around at the streets, more crowded than usual. “I’ve never been a fan of close presses of people. Especially ones that I don’t know. There are going to be a lot of tourists soon, people coming from all over Remnant to attend, and I just…”

She fell silent for a moment, walking the next block and stopping for the crosswalk to change. “It’s just better for me to be out of the way.”

“It’s going to be a logistical challenge,” Weiss agreed. “That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to the most. All the planning and transportation and all of the back-end operations… I hope they let me shadow them during the setup.”

Yang pointedly bumped into Weiss.

“—but, I can see how that might be uncomfortable for others,” Weiss amended, hastily. “It’s a shame, though. The last time the Vytal Festival was in Atlas, I was allowed into the executive luxury box my father purchased. They were the best seats in the house, he said.”

“Is that the kind with the private catering?” asked Ruby, her dismay temporarily set aside at the mention of Amity’s private seating. She’d only seen the luxury boxes when the cameras panned to celebrities’ reactions to the tournament.

“Hand-picked selections from the best five-star restaurants in Atlas,” Weiss confirmed.

“That is _so cool,_ ” Ruby squealed. “Amber, you _have_ to go now, maybe Professor Ozpin has something like that you can go where there won’t be anyone around!”

Amber sighed. “That’s really not what I meant. You _know_ that I need the Huntsman escort for these trips, and it’s a lot harder to keep track of each other in a crowded street.”

Ruby pouted. It wasn’t like she’d _forgotten_ that the reason for their Friday outings was because Amber needed bodyguards when she was going to be around people who might not like the work she was doing. It was just that the Vytal Festival was so exciting, it was easy to get swept up in the moment. The moment was so tempting and inviting and it smelled faintly of cinnamon-sugar and fried dough. The moment was funnel-cakes, that familiar fairground delicacy, and as much as Ruby might want to rush and buy as many as she could, that didn’t always mean that everyone else was on the same page. The same thing was true of the Vytal Festival. She’d need to remember that.

Aaaaand now she was hungry. The familiar sizzle of dough being dropped into hot oil drew her attention, and she realized she was reaching for her wallet. So _that’s_ why she was thinking of funnel cakes.

“You _have_ to at least watch us fight, though! You should come and cheer on Team RWBY to go to the finals! And JNPR will be there too! Don’t you want to see us be amazing?”

“I’ll absolutely see you be amazing,” said Amber, holding up her hand. “From a projection broadcast. Or my scroll. Far away from the tens of thousands of people.”

They reached the soup kitchen and started to unload their deliveries. Ruby dropped off her blankets and jumped slightly as Yang’s huge crate crashed to the floor with a loud _thump._ This was the last of the deliveries for a while – the kitchen was stocked up through the holidays, thanks to the last few Fridays with Amber.

She’d been planning for this, Ruby realized with a start. With the influx of people, she wanted to make sure the city’s needy were well taken care of if in her absence, and she’d planned her deliveries accordingly. _That_ must have been why she stopped worrying about loading Yang up so heavily.

Ruby made a mental note to check with Nora and Pyrrha, to see if Amber had made good use of their prowess as well. Why limit yourself to one Yang? Nora was weightlifting buddies with her and could match her pound for pound. Also, with Pyrrha around, anything in metal crates would be a snap.

Speaking of Yang…

“It’ll be alright.” She’d taken the opportunity to lean herself up against the outer wall and was casually swiping through her scroll. “We’ll bring you back something from the gift shop.”

“I do like a good gift shop,” said Amber, humming thoughtfully. Her voice took on the playful tones of someone wrestling with temptation the way one would wrestle with a five-year-old cousin at a family gathering. “Will they have clothing made by someone who thinks they’re far more clever than they actually are?”

“How about a ‘My Team Won The Vytal Tournament And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt’?”

“That would be delightful,” said Amber. “I would be honored.”

“Who says we’re going to win?” Blake piped up from behind them.

“ _Blake!_ ” gasped Ruby, feeling more betrayed in that moment than any other day of her life. “How could you _say_ such a thing? Of _course_ we’re going to win!”

“Have you seen the competition?” Blake shook her head. “Not even counting the teams from the other kingdoms, there’s still Velvet’s team and JNPR to think about.”

“What about CRDL?” Weiss asked, sounding distracted. She, too, was flicking through her scroll, only half paying attention to the conversation.

“What _about_ CRDL?” Yang countered.

“...that’s fair.”

“I don’t know,” said Ruby. “I saw Coco in action and she’s pretty intense, but with enough practice and confidence, we can probably give them a run for their money.”

“Even still,” said Blake, not sounding entirely convinced but moving on regardless, “that still leaves us with Pyrrha.”

Yang cracked her knuckles. “Bet you five lien I could take her.”

Weiss laughed. “Make that five thousand and I’ll take that action.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“Not in a million years, Xiao Long.”

Amber held up her hands in an attempt to pacify them. “Hey, hey, it’s alright. I believe in you.”

Ruby beamed up at her. “You do?”

“Absolutely. And if you get me that shirt, I’m covered for when JNPR beats you in the finals.”

Just like that, her cheer deflated. “Not you, too…”

 

* * *

 

They’d cleared out Amber’s checklist early, so they went back downtown to relax and enjoy the afternoon. Main Street had the most activity, where shopkeepers and city workers alike were decorating in anticipation of the Festival. Street vendors were out in force, and after a lot of persuading by Ruby, they stopped for funnel cakes and ice cream sodas.

Blake was finding herself swept away by the Festival energy. Unlike the other girls, she didn’t have many fond memories of Vytal rotating through the Kingdoms. Menagerie didn’t get to participate on its own, and the one time that her family was in Vacuo during a Festival year…

...well, the less said about that, the better.

Still, it was fun, getting to enjoy the spirit of the season like a normal girl. It was educational, sure, but it was also kind of nice to just walk down the street and take in the sights.

She should have known it wouldn’t last.

A Dust shop at the corner of Main and Shaw was cordoned off, police tape blocking out the entire sidewalk outside and partway into the street itself. As they approached, Blake noted the shards of glass from the front window scattered all over the outside. The lights were off and the store was empty, save the two plain-clothes detectives standing over the crime scene.

Blake frowned as she sized up the damage. Something about the scene bugged her. She detached from the group and approached the storefront, trying to figure out what it was that drew her attention.

The two detectives glanced up at her as she drew closer. The closer one scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Stay back, miss,” he warned. “Forensics is still doing a sweep.”

The sun bounced off his sunglasses, as well as the shiny dome of slicked back hair. Blake suppressed a sneeze; the man _reeked_ of pomade.

“Blake? Is everything okay?” Ruby stepped up to the cordoned off area alongside her. Blake hadn’t noticed her following behind.

“What happened here?” asked Yang, moving up to Blake’s other side. Weiss and Amber were hanging back just a few feet away; apparently they’d all noticed Blake falling behind and gone after her.

“Robbery,” said the detective. “Second Dust shop today. These thieves are getting bolder, hitting a store in broad daylight.”

“They left the register again,” another detective said from inside the shop, his voice carrying easily through the shattered plate glass window. “Wiped the Dust clean but left the money. What kind of business model is that?”

Ruby frowned, her eyes flashing with recognition. “That’s… odd.”

“Do you know something?” Blake asked.

“I’m not sure.”

The second detective stepped out of the store, circling around the shards of broken glass that had yet to be tagged. He smelled like body odor and stale coffee; they must be working overtime. “Who needs that much Dust?”

“Everybody needs Dust,” said Pomade. “Makes the freakin’ world go ‘round.”

“Yeah, but these guys, they’ve been hitting every Dust shop and Schnee freighter in the city that they can. There’s making a statement, and then there’s stockpiling.”

“You thinkin’ the White fang?”

Stale Coffee shrugged. “I’m thinkin’ we don’t get paid enough. Armies and terrorists go up the chain.”

The pair went back into the shop, bouncing theories off each other the entire way.

“It’s a statement, alright,” Weiss muttered. “I really thought it wouldn’t follow me here, not this time.”

Ruby started to reach out her hand, then pulled it back, as if she thought better of it. “Weiss? Is everything okay?”

“No.” Weiss tossed her hair back as she drew herself up to her full height, squaring her shoulders in defiance. “But I’m not going to be intimidated by those degenerates.”

“What degenerates?” Blake asked, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. _Don’t say it. Don’t._

“The White Fang, of course,” said Weiss. “A bunch of dirty, diseased ingrates who revel in nothing but savagery.”

Blake knew she shouldn’t respond to that. She’d be picking at a festering scab. It would be best to leave it be.

“And honestly,” Weiss continued, “it sounds like this robbery was the work of someone deranged, and the White Fang fit that description to a T.”

...nope. Festering scab time. “They’re a bunch of misguided faunus who want to make the world better,” Blake countered. “Isn’t that their right?”

“They rob freighters and start riots!” Weiss clenched her fists tightly to her sides, practically vibrating with rage. “They shoot first and ask questions never!”

“So they’re _very_ misguided. There’s no need to paint them with the same brush.”

“I _don’t_ need to! They do a wonderful job painting it on themselves.”

Blake bristled. “You intolerant—”

Amber pushed herself in front of Blake, providing a physical barrier between herself and Weiss. “Ladies. This is not the place.” She took a moment to adjust her hood. “We came down to the docks to enjoy the rest of the afternoon, so let’s do that, alright?”

“But she—” Blake started to protest. She took a breath and stopped herself. Her ears strained against the tightly-wrapped bow, instinctively trying to flatten themselves against her head in rage. Amber was right, she needed to de-escalate. “Fine. It’s fine. We can go watch the ships come in.”

“Hey, yeah!” exclaimed Ruby just a bit too quickly. She was clearly seizing upon the moment to change the subject as fast as she could. “Transport from Vacuo’s supposed to come in today, we can check out the Huntsmen from Shade.”

“And gain an advantage against the competition?” Weiss mused. “That is an excellent idea, Ruby.”

Ruby beamed. “You hear that, Yang? I had an ‘excellent idea’.”

Yang laughed. “Like when you filled Dad’s truck with maple syrup instead of gasoline because it looked the same?”

“No, an _actual_ good idea,” grumbled Ruby, crossing her arms and scowling. “Also, I was like _six_ at the time.”

“How about when you broke the cookie jar and you fed the rest to Zwei to get rid of the evidence?”

“In my defense, it _worked_.”

“Or the time you—”

_“Yang, stop helping!”_

 

* * *

 

Fisherman’s Pier was just as opulent as the main thoroughfares of the city. The primary commercial port was, after all, the first glimpse of Vale that visitors would receive, provided they came by sea. The airship landings both in the city proper and up at Beacon were similarly bedecked in ribbons, balloons, and banners proclaiming the Vytal Festival and Tournament, but the docks were expected to field at least triple the foot traffic as ships came in from every corner of Remnant.

Even outside of the Festival, Fisherman’s Pier was a tourist attraction. Stalls lined the boardwalk, filled with vendors of greasy fried foods, handmade accessories, and cheaply-made apparel with cheesy slogans or poorly-drawn artwork screen printed across the fabric. There were the usual storefronts too, with farmed produce, freshly-caught fish at market prices, and everything in-between. With the Festival not yet underway, only a small number of tourists were out roaming the streets, but their numbers would only increase as the date approached. Until then, it was only a little bazaar.

It was different being on this side of the Festival, Weiss mused as they meandered through the boardwalk. The last Vytal she’d attended, as she’d said to her team, was when she was her father’s guest to the tournament. They hadn’t done much of anything beyond a press conference before the tournament started. No cultural fair, no marketplace, no food court…

Actually, that was a question.

“What kind of food preparation do you think they’ll have for the Festival?” she asked. “I presume there’s a separate section for the participants.”

“Yes and no?” Yang answered, waggling her hand back and forth, palm facing downward. “The quad up at the school is going to be public access, it’s the biggest venue for the food stalls and tables needed for the fairgrounds. But we’ll have priority access to the transports, since we’ll need to get up and down from the Arena pretty quickly.”

“Well, that’s good,” Weiss said, peering at a selection of handmade jewelry. “Klein said that he always appreciated a good biergarten. Maybe I should get him something.”

“From the _food court?_ ”

“No,” said Weiss, pointing at a pair of cufflinks. They were inexpensive, but well-made – colored glass, cut and pressed into a setting of plated copper. What drew her attention to them was the specific arrangement of colors, seven in total, arranged in a simple but elegant ovoid shape. “I think he’d like that, what do you think?”

Yang leaned in to peer at it more closely. “What are they supposed to be? Stars?”

“Not stars,” said Weiss. “It reminds me of our butler’s Semblance, and I thought he’d appreciate it. The colors each represent a part of him.”

She picked up one of the cufflinks and pointed out the arrangement. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to see anything match quite so closely, but now I _have_ to get it for him.”

“You have a _butler?_ ” Yang asked, incredulously.

“Klein’s been with our family since before I was born,” Weiss clarified. “He was my mother’s personal attendant for decades.”

There was a derisive snort behind them. Weiss ignored it.

“Waaaait a minute,” said Ruby. “Was he the guy with your bags on the first day? Before you exploded me?”

“You exploded _yourself,_ and yes. Klein dropped me off, to make sure I was alright.”

“Sounds like he’s pretty important to you,” Yang mused.

“Well, of course he’s important. He’s…” Weiss trailed off as she searched for a better way to explain it. “He’s _Klein._ ”

She paid for the cufflinks. The shop owner wrapped them up for her and placed them in a box that was as decorative as it was flimsy, but gaudy bedazzled cardboard was the furthest thing on her mind.

He’d love the present. Weiss had no doubt in her mind at all about that. The real question was, should she send it to him now, or wait to give it to him in person? She wouldn’t be heading back to Atlas until after the end of term, which was still a long way away, but… she really wanted to see the happiness in his eyes when he opened it.

Decisions. Well, she’d have time to think about it. The dorms had mail service, and even if they didn’t, she could hire a messenger any time she was down here in the city—

Her train of thought was interrupted as a boy ran full-speed into her, almost knocking her down. As it was, he clipped her shoulder as he passed, spinning her around and directly into Yang, who reached out to steady her before she could hit the ground.

“Look out for that faunus!” shouted a man from the docks, helpfully.

“Weiss, are you okay?” asked Ruby, reaching out for her.

Weiss pulled herself back upright and brushed off her dress. “I’m fine, no thanks to that lout.” She started checking herself. Hair: mussed but in place. Jacket: straightened. Skirt: Light dusting and it was fine – Dust-infused fibers were resilient and easy to clean.

“Are you sure? He ran by so fast, I didn’t even get a good look at him.”

“I’m _fine,_ Ruby,” Weiss insisted. “Someone like him should watch where he’s going, he almost made me drop my…”

She flexed her fingers. The box was missing. She glanced around her feet, then bent over to look behind the railing in case it fell down there. It was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for this?”

In front of them, a boy about their age dangled from a lamp post by his golden-furred tail. His hair hung loose from his head, coarse and yellow like his tail, swaying in the breeze. He wore an open shirt over jeans, with a red and gold staff in a sling across his shoulders, and in his hands…

He had the box. He had the _box._

“That’s mine!” Weiss shouted. She thrust her arm forward to point accusingly at the thief. “Give it back!”

“What, this?” He tossed the box in the air and flipped himself upright. The box tumbled back down into his outstretched hand. “Someone like you wouldn’t be carrying such low-class street market goods, so I thought there was a mistake.”

“How _dare_ you? Do you even know who I am?” The words came to her as easy as breathing. She’d heard them so many times before, when accompanying her father on business trips and inspections of the factories. Someone was being _disrespectful._

The faunus smirked. It was textbook, a smirk that said volumes more than words ever could. It was the smirk she imagined the tricksters in fairy tales had when defying the gods themselves. “I don’t particularly care,” he said, in a tone that sent molten lava itself pouring through her veins. “The important question here is, do you?”

_“What?”_

“Weiss,” Ruby cautioned, placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

Weiss shrugged it off. “I’m going to ask one last time before I call the police,” she threatened. “Give that back!”

The faunus idly tossed it from one hand to the next. “You want it so bad? Come get it.”

He vaulted off his perch and sprinted down the street. Without even thinking about it, Weiss took off after him.

 

* * *

 

“Come on, he can’t have gotten far!”

Ruby hesitated as her teammates trailed after Weiss, chasing the faunus boy through the streets. Her first impulse was to go support her teammate, her _friend,_ but something wasn’t sitting right with the whole situation.

There was something else going on here, she could feel it. She just couldn’t figure out what it was.

Amber stepped up beside her, her dark green cloak flapping in the wind. “Not going to chase after them?”

Oh. Right. _Mission._

“I was thinking about it,” she admitted, her voice pitched low with guilt. “I mean, I’m team leader, I should get them in line, right? But I can’t leave you unprotected.”

“I think in this case, you’re fine,” said Amber, staring off into the distance. Not in the direction that Weiss and the rest went, either.

Ruby craned her neck around, trying to spot what Amber was looking at. Nothing immediately jumped out at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m good for right now,” Amber said. She beamed at Ruby, her smile warm and reassuring. “There’s a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Go on, I’ll catch up.”

Ruby frowned. That _absolutely_ wasn’t the mission. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Go on.”

Ruby nodded, thankful for the confirmation. She took a second to shift her feet before pushing her Aura into her Semblance, and she took off in a burst of rose petals.

 

* * *

 

Amber watched her bodyguard dash away, the streak of red somehow blending into the surroundings even as she tore her way through the city streets.

It was nice, being around people. Even if she could only do it once a week. That was her favorite part, really, and the best interpretation she had of her duty. That’s why she never wanted to be a Huntress, after all: it was romantic, all the stories of dashing heroes and slaying monsters. Huntsmen had a sacred duty, just as she herself did. The fact of the matter was, though, that so many Huntsmen thought their duty ended when the Grimm did, never staying around long enough to help rebuild.

Remnant was full of villages that survived one attack by Grimm, only to fall to the next after their requested Huntsman went home. The Maidens could use their power to slay monsters, and many of them throughout history did. There was power in destruction.

Rebuilding, however, had a power all its own, and that was what Amber chose to make of her life. Destroy that which threatened life, then create new opportunities, new avenues of growth. It was important to know which suited the task at hand. It was important to decide how best to use her power, what would do the most good to serve the public.

She didn’t feel comfortable in crowds these days, moreso now than before she was randomly attacked in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit of a wake-up call, knowing that somewhere, someone was after her. Something that she’d known academically upon receiving the mantle, but having someone like Ozpin tell her that there were those who would happily see her gone, and actually fighting an entire squad of assassins that appeared literally out of nowhere? Those were two completely different things. It was scary, and it was humbling.

Nowadays, she checked every alley, studied every shadow. Even with a squad of trainee Huntsmen at her back, it was stressful. Hiding from sight wasn’t an option, though. It gave her no agency in her own destiny.

Helping people? That _helped._ That was her taking her life back into her own hands. This, she chose to do. If there was a price, she chose to pay it.

She stepped into the alley off Main, behind the dockside bar. It was quiet and dark, since the afternoon sun had started its descent over the bay, and the shadows in the alley were almost deep enough to be tangible. It was here that she’d seen her Guardian, languishing behind a dumpster, making a token effort to keep out of sight. She knew this for the farce it was, since if Qrow Branwen didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t be. She hadn’t known him for long, but it didn’t take that much insight to learn _that._

“Glad to see you’re getting along with the girls,” he said.

Amber raised an eyebrow. “You know them?”

“Some of them,” Qrow acknowledged. “They’re good kids, if a bit loud sometimes, but they’ll grow on you.”

“Kids will do that,” said Amber, noncommittally. She sighed and pulled her hood down so she could run her fingers through her hair. “How am I going to die this time?”

The thing she’d learned quickly about Qrow was that he put a lot of effort in making himself seem cool and unflappable. It was more fun than she’d anticipated catching him off-guard like this. His face as he spluttered was a sight to behold, as if he couldn’t decide whether to go pale or to flush red.

He eventually settled on clearing his throat and trying to play it off as a sudden cough. “What do you mean, how are you going to die?” he asked, thumping his chest softly as if he was forcing down another series of lung spasms.

“Every time you show up out of the blue, something’s trying to kill me,” Amber clarified. “I don’t see assassins or Grimm here, so what is it this time?”

Qrow sighed and flopped against the wall, in a move that was less a lean and more a slouch with lumbar support. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a leather-embossed flask, which sloshed enticingly as he unscrewed the lid.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he said after a moment. He took a swig from his flask and replaced the cap. “We need to talk.”

 

* * *

 

One of the benefits of superspeed was that it didn’t take long for Ruby to catch up with her teammates. She moved like the wind through the city streets, darting across sidewalks and past intersections without a care in the world. It might have even been more accurate to say that she _was_ the wind, the way she moved – she wasn’t entirely certain how that part of her Semblance worked, only that it _did_ – and she quickly found herself alongside the other girls as they chased down the thief. She popped into place next to Yang and Blake, before realizing that they themselves were barely keeping up with Weiss.

Weiss’s Semblance didn’t affect her directly without using Dust to augment the effects, but they did allow her to change how she interacted with the world around her. Currently, she was speed skating across her glyphs, which were suspended inches above the ground to avoid friction. She barrelled down the street, heedless of pedestrians, keeping pace with the faunus boy.

Her quarry was giving her a run for her money, though, leaping across rooftops and swinging around lamp posts and traffic lights. Every time Weiss came within spitting distance, he’d make an impossibly tight turn and dart down another road. She had the speed, but he had the edge in mobility.

That was a lesson Ruby had learned a while ago, which is why she built Crescent Rose the way that she did. Speed didn’t mean anything if you couldn’t halt or redirect your momentum at a moment’s notice.

Speaking of which…

“Weiss, look out!” Ruby shouted as a girl stepped out of a doorway directly into her teammate’s path. It was a reflex, more than anything else; she knew the moment the words left her lips that it was already too late.

With a terrified shriek, Weiss sailed directly into the girl, knocking both of them to the ground.

“Weiss!”

Ruby skidded to a stop beside the tangled mass of limbs and cursing. Blake and Yang caught up and reached down to make sure everyone was okay.

“Don’t touch me!” Weiss snapped, pushing herself off the ground. “That filthy faunus got away, and I’m never going to catch up to him at this rate.”

Behind her, Blake twitched.

Ruby winced. “It’s okay, Weiss! We can just go back and get it replaced, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Weiss shrieked. “ _No big deal?_ Those were one-of-a-kind, the sign said the shopkeeper makes everything by hand and there’s no way they’d be able to duplicate the design from memory! The colors were perfect, and they were for Klein! I’m not going to be able to get anything that perfect again!”

“It’s okay,” Ruby said, as soothingly as she could. “We’ll find something else, it’s alright.”

“It won’t be!”

Yang raised her hand. “Um, Weiss?”

“What?”

“I think you killed her.” Yang pointed down to the other girl, who was still prone on the ground, eyes wide. Her short red hair was splayed across the concrete, her curls still bouncing in the wind.

The girl blinked. “I don’t think I’m dead,” she mused. She brought her hands up to her face to inspect them. “It would take a lot more than that, at least.”

Her eyes swept over the four of them, each standing over her in horror. “Salutations,” she said. Her voice was as chipper as the smile on her face, which was only slightly undercut by the fact that she hadn’t moved from where she had been knocked down. “I’m very glad you weren’t harmed running into me.”

“Do, uh,” Ruby stammered. “Do you want to get up?”

The girl frowned in thought. “Yes,” she decided. “Yes, I do.” She kipped up in one fluid motion, graceful as a dancer, ending up two feet away from the rest of the girls.

Ruby found herself stepping back reflexively. “H-hello! Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I am doing splendidly, thank you for asking!” chirped the other girl. She started smoothing out her dress – green and slate grey over black lace armbands and leggings. The accents along her wrists and her ankles were the same vibrant, electric green as her eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Penny.”

Ruby tilted her head as she looked Penny over again. It was if the girl was checking conversation points off a list as she talked; her mannerisms were practiced and precise.

Then again, she wasn’t one to judge someone for being socially awkward. Living a sheltered life was turning out to be a fairly common experience for the people she met at Beacon. Come to think of it, the most well-adjusted person she’d met so far was _Jaune_ , and that was really saying something. If Penny needed to practice her people skills in front of a mirror in the morning, that was fine by Ruby.

“I’m Ruby,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Weiss.”

“Blake.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor? Weiss hit you pretty hard.”

Blake elbowed Yang in the ribs.

“Oh! Right. I’m Yang.”

Penny didn’t respond right away. She was staring at Ruby’s outstretched hand as if she’d never seen it before.

...oh. Right. Social awkwardness often paired up with being uncomfortable with physical contact. “Sorry,” Ruby said. “Just saying hello.”

Before she could pull her hand back, Penny reached out and took it in her own. “It’s fine! I just haven’t had anyone offer to shake my hand before.” She grinned and released Ruby’s hand.

“Oh, is that like a cultural thing?”

Penny hesitated. “Not exactly. I just don’t usually meet a lot of people. This is actually my first time travelling!”

“That’s hard to believe,” Weiss muttered sarcastically.

“Don’t mind Weiss,” said Yang, laying a cautionary hand on Weiss’s shoulder. “She’s just having a bad day. What brings you to Vale?”

Penny’s eyes lit up. She struck a heroic pose, thrusting her clenched fists against her hips. “I’m here to fight in the Tournament!”

“Wait,” said Weiss. She strolled over and looked Penny up and down. “ _You’re_ fighting in the Tournament?”

“Yep! I’m combat ready!” Penny tried to square her shoulders just a little bit more. She _mostly_ got the point across.

“Are you a student?” Ruby asked. “Which school?”

“Not officially,” Penny admitted. “But my father says if I do well in the Tournament, he’ll let me attend Atlas next year, so I hope I do well.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” said Ruby. “And now you’ll have some friends cheering you on!”

Penny blinked. “I will?”

“Sure, we’re Huntresses too! We’ll be there. Maybe we’ll see you in the finals!”

“I… yeah, maybe!” said Penny, her voice somewhat distant.

Yang pulled out her scroll and made a face. “Wow, that is not what time I thought it was. We should double back and make sure Amber is okay.”

“Amber?” Weiss’s expression shifted from confusion to full-on panic. “Oh no, our mission!”

“It’s okay,” Ruby reassured them. “She let me go chase after you. Said she had a friend nearby.”

“Still,” said Yang, “we should go check on her and bring her back to Beacon safely.”

“It was nice meeting you!” Ruby shouted, waving at Penny.

Penny waved them off cheerfully. “It was a pleasure meeting you as well, Ruby! Have a sensational evening!”

 

* * *

 

They walked back to the docks, lost in thought. It had been an eventful day. Ruby took stock of her team, unsure of how to approach them, but she knew that everyone was still on edge.

Weiss’s footsteps were sharp and precise, her heels clacking against the concrete defiantly. She tended to get more formal and detached the angrier she was, Ruby knew, and right now the heiress was clearly furious. Ruby wasn’t even sure she could blame her.

Blake had withdrawn into herself. She trailed behind the other three, hanging back as much as she could without straying from the group. Not wanting to be separated but clearly needing to be alone.

Even Yang was agitated. An outside observer might have seen the boisterous girl cracking jokes and making cheerful observations, but Ruby knew her sister, and Yang was playing damage control the only way she knew how. It was the kind of display of emotional strength that was far more fragile than it looked, and her eyes were frantic as she tried to fill the empty space as much as she could.

It was distressingly familiar. It was how Yang used to be after Mom died.

Ruby shook her head. She wasn’t the same scared, lonely, hurt little girl she was back then. This was _her_ team, and she’d find a way to fix it.

“A lot of kids are coming in for the Tournament,” Ruby mused out loud, hoping to draw someone into a pleasantly-distracting conversation. “I wonder how many there will be.”

“There was supposed to be a ship from Mistral today,” Blake said from behind them. “Some of them must be checking in now.”

Weiss scoffed. “That disgusting creep came from the docks. Maybe that’s where he ran off to.” She straightened her posture and turned up her nose to the thought, the very picture of high-class affronted displeasure. “Haven clearly doesn’t screen its applicants strongly enough, if a criminal like that was able to get in.”

Blake made a noise like a strangled cough. Ruby glanced back at her, but as flushed as her face was, Blake waved her off.

Weiss was unfortunately oblivious to this entire exchange. “Honestly, it’s no wonder. He’ll probably drop out of school and join the rest of those White Fang ruffians.”

“Weiss,” Ruby cautioned.

“No, I’m tired of this!” Weiss shouted. “Every single faunus criminal targets me or my family, and it’s unfair! The lot of them have it out for me.”

Blake stopped walking. “What is your problem?” she snapped.

Weiss whirled around to face her. Her fists were clenched and her eyes were wide and accusatory. _“Excuse me?”_

“He’s not filthy, he’s not disgusting,” Blake said, her head held high in defiance. “He’s a person! Treat him with some respect!”

“Why? So he can come back and rob me a second time?”

Blake bristled. “Not every faunus is a criminal, and you know it!”

“And yet so many of them turn out to be so! You heard the detectives back there, that was the White Fang at work!”

Ruby darted in between the pair of them, moving closer to Weiss to try to block the growing tension between them. Behind her, Yang was doing the same with Blake. “Hey, guys, come on, it’s late, we should really be getting home…”

“Those detectives were bouncing their crackpot theories against each other,” snapped Blake, ignoring the sisters’ attempt to calm them down. “It could have been Junior’s gang, or that Torchwick guy, or _any other criminal in Vale_. The White Fang—”

“The White Fang are a bunch of terrorists, murderers, and thieves!” Weiss pushed past Ruby to stomp over to Blake. “They’re a bunch of filthy faunus who delight in destroying property and lives, no matter what!”

“Stop calling them filthy!”

Weiss gaped. “What do you mean, the White Fang?”

“Faunus! They’re people, just like you!”

“People who have been killing board members, sending bomb threats to my father!” Weiss crossed her arms. “You know they tried to kidnap Whitley last year? Sent someone right to his boarding school to collect him. Looked like any other person in Atlas, right up until they almost shoved him into an unmarked airship.”

“Guys, we’re causing a scene here,” said Yang in one last-ditch effort to get them to keep moving.

“So you’re scared that what, any faunus will jump out at you from the shadows?” Blake countered. “Are you scared of _Velvet_?”

Weiss set her jaw and didn’t respond. This was, unfortunately, the wrong answer.

“Oh my god,” Blake muttered. “You’re scared of _Velvet._ She’s the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, but just because of her ears…”

Backed into a corner, Weiss rallied. “Well, so what if I am? You don’t know what it’s like to see the people around frustrated because not everybody made it home. That some deranged psycho who made it their life’s work to destroy everything you hold dear, specifically targets you because you’re a _stepping stone._ ”

“Shut up…”

“You don’t know what it’s like to hear people talk about the White Fang like they’re some sort of idealistic fantasy, when they’ve done nothing but kill.”

“Shut up!” Blake yelled.

Weiss put her hands on her hips. “They claim to be about equality, but all I ever see from them is riots and violence.”

_“Maybe it’s because we’re tired of being murdered in the streets!”_

The streets had already emptied when the argument began, but with that proclamation, everything else _stopped._ Weiss, Ruby, and Yang stared as Blake raised her hands to her face in horror.

There was no noise. An oppressive silence rose to fill the void.

“Blake,” Yang started to say, reaching out for her partner…

...but it was too late. Blake’s form flickered and vanished, a shadow clone left to mask her retreat.

 

* * *

**World of Remnant  
** **Polendina Robotics**

Atlas, the Kingdom of Innovation, is known for its many technological achievements. The Kingdom’s chief exports are no exception, from intricate Dust engines and large-scale construction machinery, to automated defensive installations and robotic sentries. There are many industries revolving around these popular mechanics, each with governmental and military contracts from the capital of Atlas itself. Certainly not the least of these is Polendina Robotics.

Initially formed as a biomedical research partnership, Lucius Polendina led the field of advanced cybernetics, developing prosthetic replacements for soldiers and Huntsmen who made it back from the field, wounded and scarred by Grimm and other threats to the nation. These prosthetics were light-weight, durable, and highly modular, able to adapt to the needs of the wearer, be they civilian or warrior.

Polendina’s business partner Arthur Watts, eventually left the company altogether, driven into seclusion by the investigations into his unethical biological research. The press surrounding this scandal, as well as the subsequent hit to the company’s shareholders, led many to believe that Polendina would exit the private sector as well, as his research would clearly crash around his ears.

This did not happen. Polendina developed a new type of machinery, capable of channeling the user’s Aura itself, which allowed Huntsmen with Polendina prosthetics to use them just as effectively as their original limbs in battle, if not moreso. With patent in hand and a new contract with the military ready and waiting, the newly restructured Polendina Robotics led the charge for an all new wave of security enhancements and robotics research for Atlas.

Watts was quickly hired by Merlot Industries, Polendina’s direct Vale competitor. His whereabouts following the disaster at Mountain Glenn have not been confirmed.

**[In response to vandalism from this CCT address, anonymous editing may be disabled. If you believe this is in error, please contact sysadmin and the Abuse team for arbitration.]**

**[Reason: LOCATION – ＥＲＲＯＲ.]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ren treats every Grimm & Garrisons session like a puzzle to be solved. Nora enjoys smashing her way through combat encounters and finding new and uncomfortable ways to embarrass Jaune's roleplaying of his NPCs. Pyrrha is just having a fun time with her friends.


	10. Lost and Found

The end of semester movie night was a tradition with Team CFVY.

Granted, Coco declared it a tradition ever since midterms their first year. Velvet was reasonably certain that something couldn’t be a tradition if they were doing it for the first time, but it all worked out in the end. Especially since they’d kept up with it and had a movie night at the end of term, and they were at the moment setting up for their third.

Fox acquired the popcorn. Yatsuhashi rearranged the furniture. Coco ordered pizza, and this time around they’d let Velvet choose the movies. Out of deference to the last two events, her first pick was one she knew everyone would enjoy – a martial arts comedy with a reclusive master being shadowed by a plucky young police officer. The two lead characters had a reluctant chemistry, leading to hilarious hijinks and touching character growth, as each had something to teach the other about life along the way. The second one was a bit of a gamble, but she’d been wanting to share her childhood favorite with everyone for a while. She was pretty sure that the message of found family and acceptance of a person with their flaws, not despite them, would be appreciated.

Visual media was important to Velvet. She loved reading books as much as the next girl, but there was something powerful about concepts taking form in a physical space. It was one of the reasons she’d taken up photography in the first place, way back in Menagerie. Not just capturing the subject’s image, but finding the best version of it. The manipulation of light and color was an art form, and when she was out in the field, just her and her camera, the world just seemed to… to _focus_. Everything seemed more _real._

Movies were the same thing. She knew plenty of people where it was the opposite – she’d had this exact conversation with Blake a few weeks back – but for her specifically, telling a story with full cinematic immersion made it more real.

Secretly, she always suspected that Coco came up with the movie night to make her feel better, since that first one seemed to align with a particularly bad week. Their team leader was outgoing to the point of testing the boundaries of personal space, but unobservant she was most certainly not. The first team movie night was a night of relaxation and of companionship, and the ones after that just built further off those original feelings.

Coco had a point. After all, traditions had to start _somewhere._

Speaking of Coco, she and Fox rearranged their dorm room every few weeks, based on whatever interior design aesthetics they were going for at the time. It kept the flow of the room fresh, and the arrangements always looked fantastic, but they had to keep moving the CCT terminal because of it. The tangle of wires behind the dresser was Velvet’s current challenge, and she had wedged herself in halfway to try to extricate it to move it to a more central position for the movies.

There was a knock at the door. She poked her head out of the mess to see what was going on.

Coco ruffled Velvet’s hair as she passed by, heading for the door. “I got it, don’t worry.”

“Thanks! Just trying to make sure tonight goes well.”

“It’ll be fun! You just get it set up and we’ll take care of the rest, okay?”

Velvet grinned and ducked back down to disconnect the terminal. The projector didn’t take much; power for the display, and while it could connect to the CCT wirelessly, having it hooked up with a landline was the best for a stable feed. Even if the cables were a mess—

One last yank and the cable came free. Velvet extricated herself from behind the furniture and held up the projector proudly. “Hah! Got it! Hey, where was I putting this again? By the window?”

“Hey, Velvet,” said Coco from the doorway. “This one’s for you.”

“Be right there!” Velvet dropped the projector, cables and all, onto the top of the dresser. She took a moment to stretch out her back, grunting in relief as a series of soft but definite pops cascaded up her spine. Note to self: anything that doubled as a workshop was heavier than it looked, and that was probably supposed to be a two person lift.

All limbered up, she scooted over around the corner to the door that Coco held open. Her smile fell at the expression on their visitor’s face. She knew that look well, and she’d had a feeling it was going to happen sooner or later.

“Right,” she said. “I’m glad you came to me. Let’s talk.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Ten  
** **Lost and Found**

* * *

 

The most important thing, Ruby said, was to get their client home safely. Finish the mission, then they could fix what went wrong.

That didn’t mean that they couldn’t do both at the same time, however, so she’d sent Yang out to go searching for Blake while Ruby and Weiss escorted Amber back to Beacon.

Weiss had thought happy, cheerful, irritatingly exuberant Ruby was bad. She thought that she’d weathered the worst her teammate could throw at her.

The shuttle back to Beacon was silent, and not in the way it usually was. Most trips back from the city, the girls were too tired to talk, sore but satisfied from a long day’s work, or a weekend excursion down to the movies. The companionable silence used to eat at the back of Weiss’s mind, but she quickly found it soothing, and even started looking forward to it. It was nice, really. Not having to worry about finding something to say, even casually, was a blessing.

_(you are there to represent the family, and by extension the schnee dust company itself)_

This time, it was not a companionable silence. Nobody on board that Bullhead was having a good time, with the possible exception of the pilot. The tension was so fragile that Weiss felt like the slightest noise would shatter it entirely. She was painfully aware of her own motions, of the physical space she was taking up just by existing.

It was distressingly familiar.

_(people with a lot of money don’t have a lot of friends)_

The Bullhead touched down at Beacon’s airfield, and the hatch opened. Early evening shadows stretched across the landing pad as the sun dipped down behind the Emerald Tower.

Ruby hopped down first. It was what she always did, following the textbook by heart. _Secure the landing zone first and foremost before allowing the equipment or personnel you’re escorting out into the open._ She always said she looked forward to being out in the open first to let her speed and reflexes out where they could do the most good, but Yang had spoiled the moment by saying that her sister was just restless. It fit.

 _She didn’t have to do it so quickly this time,_ said a guilty voice at the back of Weiss’s mind.

It was fine. It was _fine._ Blake just needed to blow off steam, happened all the time. She’d come back later in the evening, and they’d either talk or avoid each other for a few days, and it would be fine.

It was fine.

“Weiss?”

She glanced down, out of the open hatch. Ruby and Amber were standing on the tarmac. Ruby in particular was staring at her apprehensively, as if waiting for something bad to happen.

“What?” she asked, trying not to sound defensive.

“Your hand,” said Ruby, her eyes darting to where Weiss was still holding onto the safety handle.

Weiss followed her gaze. Her hand was wrapped around the steel rod, her knuckles white with the amount of pressure she hadn’t even realized she was squeezing it with. She forced her hand to open, wincing as her muscles spasmed, and started rubbing some life into her fingers.

“I’m good from here,” Amber called out, turning to walk away from the Bullhead. “Let Ozpin know we all made it back safe, alright?”

“Soon as I can,” said Ruby. Her eyes never left Weiss. “Have a good night.”

The walk back to the dorms was quiet. It was strange, really; Weiss never would have thought she’d miss the incessant yammering of her team leader, who punctuated every activity with her thoughts and observations and questions about what everyone else around her was experiencing. A quiet Ruby was worrisome.

She had to be furious. She _had to be._ Weiss had disrupted the harmony of her team, drove one of their members away, and ruined their mission to boot. Ruby had every right to be absolutely livid. Weiss would be if it was her.

So why wasn’t Ruby yelling at her?

_(represent the family)_

_(great political capital)_

About halfway to Jinjur Hall, Ruby’s scroll rang. She glanced briefly at the display before answering it. “Any luck?”

Weiss suppressed a grimace. There went any hope that she’d be distracted from the topic at hand. Back home, there was always something happening that would interrupt an argument. A concerned shareholder, a problem at the mines, _something_ that would require Father’s personal attention.

“We’re just getting back now, I’ll let you know if she’s here,” Ruby said. She was quiet for a bit while she listened to the response. “No. No, I don’t think so either. She’ll be fine.”

Ruby glanced quickly at Weiss. “Yeah, she and I will stay home. No, I don’t think that’s going to help. Yang, stop, that’s not helping anything, don’t even joke like that.”

That didn’t sound good either.

“Alright, I’ll tell her. I love you, too.”

Ruby glanced back over at Weiss, closing her scroll and pocketing it. “Yang’s going to stay out past sundown, just in case, and then she’s going to pick up dinner on the way back. It’s probably best if we stay put in case Blake comes home on her own.”

“That’s… that’s not a bad idea,” Weiss admitted. Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.

It wasn’t until they had made it back into their dorm room that she felt brave enough to speak again. “Did you already know?”

Ruby looked up from where she was sorting her field equipment in the closet. “Did I already know what?”

“That Blake was—”

_(under my own roof)_

“—a faunus.”

“Why do you ask?”

 _Because you didn’t seem all that surprised when it came out,_ thought Weiss. _Because both you and Yang had been trying to stop me from that line of conversation all afternoon, and I didn’t pay attention._

“You were more sad than anything else,” Weiss said eventually. “You weren’t shocked, you weren’t angry, you were _sad._ ”

“You two were arguing, and Blake sounded so hurt and betrayed,” Ruby said, solemnly. “Of course I was sad.”

Weiss ignored the stab of guilt in her stomach. “But did you _know?_ ”

Ruby sighed. “Not for certain, not until she said that right then. I had a feeling that she was, though. You know how sometimes I have to go to the bathroom late at night?”

“You’ve stopped stepping on my face in the middle of the night, I appreciate that.”

Ruby grimaced. “That’s not the _point._ ”

“Sorry.”

“ _Anyway,_ Blake’s a light sleeper, and she always wakes up when I do. She’s used to it now, but those first few weeks she’d stare at me until she recognized me. Her eyes do that reflective glow in the dark thing.” Ruby shrugged. “I thought it was a Semblance thing until I ran into Velvet in the hallway one evening and her eyes did the same thing.”

Weiss gaped. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why _would_ I say anything?” Ruby countered.

“Well, for one thing…” Weiss trailed off, realizing that she didn’t actually have anything to follow that up with. She closed her mouth and tried to think about it.

Ruby shook her head sadly. “It doesn’t matter to me if Blake is a faunus, but it _does_ matter to _her_. That’s why she hasn’t said anything before now. If it was important enough to keep a secret, then it was her secret to keep, and I had no business asking her if she didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Even still,” Weiss again, trying a new reasoning, “she shouldn’t be keeping secrets like that.”

“Everyone has secrets, Weiss,” said Ruby. “I figured Blake would tell us when she was ready, and until then, I wasn’t going to ask. Just like I don’t ask you about your father.”

Weiss froze. “What do you mean, about my father?”

Ruby gave her a knowing look. “Yang and I can both tell that you don’t have that great of a relationship with him. But you don’t talk about him much, and when you do, it’s not very much.”

“I love my father a great deal,” Weiss protested. This entire conversation was getting to be too uncomfortable for her.

“I’m sure you do,” Ruby agreed. “And it’s not my business if you don’t want it to be. That’s my point.”

Weiss fell silent, taking a moment to process that. Blake ran, after admitting— after _implying_ that to talk about faunus and the White Fang was to talk about Blake herself, in the heat of anger. Anger that was fueled by Weiss’s own remarks about the terrorist organization. Why else would she be so incensed, though, if she wasn’t a part of it?

_(so you’re scared that what, any faunus will jump out at you from the shadows?)_

No. No, it wasn’t just the White Fang. Blake was right, Weiss was afraid. She was afraid, and she lashed out. Even if that thief hadn’t stolen Klein’s present, she still would have thought ill of him.

“Ruby?”

Ruby looked up from her equipment again. “Yes?”

“I really messed up, didn’t I?”

Ruby’s expression was hard to read. “I think that’s going to be between you and Blake,” she admitted. “If you’re asking my opinion, then probably, yeah.”

Weiss nodded. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. When she spoke again, her voice was small and quavering, despite her attempts to steady herself.

“So why aren’t you yelling at me?”

 

* * *

 

Ruby hesitated.

She wasn’t entirely prepared for that question. She wasn’t entirely prepared for this entire situation, in all honesty, but it was what it was. She was the leader.

Moreover, Weiss was standing against the wall, with her arms pulled in, her feet together, and her shoulders hunched, as if she was trying to occupy the least amount of space she possibly could. She was trying to make herself small.

Ruby remembered what it was like to do that.

“Why would I yell at you, Weiss?” she asked, treading carefully around the subject. “Do you want me to yell at you?”

“No,” said Weiss. “No, but I drove Blake away by being insensitive and I didn’t listen when she asked me to stop…”

“Sounds like you already know what you did wrong,” said Ruby. “What would yelling at you do?”

Weiss didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, it was written all over her face. The shock and the fear, which gave way to her eyes darting downwards. She was dwelling on memories right now, and Ruby had a pretty good idea why.

“Look, Yang will be back with food soon,” she said, hoping to curb Weiss’s anxiety with a helpful distraction. “There’s no sense in worrying on an empty stomach, I always say.”

Weiss blinked. The worried expression on her face melted away, replaced quickly with a look of incredulity. She arched an eyebrow expertly. “When? I’ve never heard you say that.”

Ruby grinned. If Weiss was bantering, that meant she was feeling better, even if only a little bit. “I’m saying it now. Come on, let’s at least tackle some homework while we wait.”

Weiss shook her head, but she settled in at the desk. “Now I _know_ that something’s wrong, if you’re suggesting that.” She sounded better, at least. More like herself, a lot less like she was trying to sink into the floor unnoticed.

Ruby checked her scroll again. No answer from Blake. Messages unread. She debated just calling her, but Blake always needed to come around to things on her own terms, not anyone else’s. As much as Ruby wanted to push, that would probably only drive her away further.

The two of them settled in for the evening, pulling out textbooks and pretending to work. Ruby knew neither of them were able to focus, but she wasn’t going to be the one to call it out.

“Ruby?”

She looked up. Weiss had turned in the chair, facing Ruby directly. “Yes?”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Weiss said.

Ruby sighed. “I know.”

“Do you think she hates me?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby admitted. “When she gets back, you two should talk about it.”

“...yeah,” said Weiss. She fell silent and turned back to her textbook.

 

* * *

 

Yang showed up shortly after sundown. She was alone, but as promised, she was carrying two large pizzas from their favorite place downtown.

Ruby glanced up when she came in, searching Yang’s expression for any sign, but her sister shook her head. Still nothing.

“Food’s here,” Yang announced, dropping the pizza boxes on the desk next to Weiss. “Hot and fresh from the oven.”

“Did you get—?”

“Light on the cheese, light on the sauce,” Yang confirmed. “Just the way you like it, Princess, I remembered.”

“And the other one?” Ruby asked, peeking under the lid. It smelled like oil and salt.

“That one’s for later,” said Yang. “Triple anchovy.”

Ruby scrunched up her nose and hurriedly shut the box. “Eugh.”

“We might want to put that one away,” Yang conceded. “No amount of grease will keep that from going bad before she has a chance to eat it.”

Weiss was staring at the pizza boxes, her hand held hesitantly half-way from them, poised to draw back as if they were about to bite her.

“Come on, Weiss,” said Yang. “Grab what you want now, I’ll drop the rest off in the fridge down in the kitchen.”

Ruby opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out some plates she’d stashed away a while back. She passed them out. “Yeah, dig in. You’d be surprised what food will fix.”

“I don’t understand why you’re both being so nice to me right now.” Weiss glanced up at them through her bangs.

“It’s food,” said Yang, simply. “It’s for everyone.”

Ruby winced. Yang was using her “your problems aren’t my problems, deal with them yourself” voice. She hadn’t heard that voice since that big argument with Dad about garage space.

“Still,” Weiss pressed on. “I thought you’d be upset with me.”

“Who says I’m not?” Yang shook her head and started loading up her plate. “Just because I’m mad doesn’t mean you don’t get pizza. That’s not how pizza works.”

“There are rules to pizza,” Ruby added, helpfully. “The first rule is that everyone who wants a corner gets one.”

“That’s not the rule,” Yang grumbled. “That’s what Dad said after you complained about not getting any corners.”

“I don’t make the rules,” said Ruby. She straightened her back and folded her arms petulantly. “Dad does.”

Weiss clenched her fists. “No, but—”

“Look,” Yang interrupted. “I can tell you haven’t had a bad argument with a friend before, so I’m going to make this simple for you. You know you screwed up, and I’m pretty sure you know _why._ Is that right?”

Weiss nodded.

“Fix it, try not to do it again, and we’re good.” Yang nodded decisively. “It’s like Dad always says: You fuck it up, you fix it.”

“He didn’t say it like that,” Ruby protested. “Dad doesn’t swear around us.”

“I’m paraphrasing.”

Ruby shook her head. “You sound like Uncle Qrow.”

Yang reached up and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Explain to me how that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not, but when you say an Uncle Qrow thing in a Dad voice, it’s _weird,_ ” Ruby clarified. She cleared her throat and pitched her voice as low as it would go, imagining that she was talking while gargling gravel. “It would be like if Uncle Qrow said ‘hey, my Sunny Little Dragon, did you clean out the shed like I asked you to?’”

Yang shuddered. “Alright, good point. Please don’t do that again.”

“‘Hey, why don’t you help me tend the sunflowers?’”

“Seriously, stop it.”

Ruby stuck her tongue out at her sister and grabbed the last two corner pieces.

Weiss sat for a bit, staring at the small pile of pizza on her plate. Her gaze was unfocused, staring directly through the plate and out the other side.

Ruby knew exactly that feeling. She wanted to throw herself at her teammate, envelop her in a big comforting hug. She held herself back, though; it wouldn’t help anything. Not yet.

After a few minutes, Weiss stood up from the desk. “I need to take a walk,” she said, setting the plate down delicately. “Clear my head a bit.”

“Not going to eat?” asked Yang.

“I will when I get back,” said Weiss. She checked her jacket and headed for the door. “I just need… I just need to think a bit, is all.”

She closed the door behind her with a soft click.

Yang and Ruby looked at each other.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want me to kick her ass?” Yang asked. She closed up the pizza boxes and stacked them on top of each other.

“ _Yes,_ ” Ruby insisted. “Stop asking that.”

 

* * *

 

Early autumn in Vale was proving to be quite pleasant, all things considered. The sun was still warm during the day, and the ocean breeze at the docks had been cool and refreshing. Once the sun went down, however, the air took on a nice crisp chill that sent wayward students rushing to the dorms for their sweaters or jackets.

Weiss was perfectly comfortable. She was Atlesian through and through; to her, this was summer weather.

Vale was an interesting place to stay, and she was enjoying her time at Beacon, but even putting aside the day’s altercations, Vale was too _different._ The municipality, the economy, the climate. The sheer contrast between how she interacted with her team and the etiquette for formal and informal social interactions with her family at home…

The crisp night air was comforting in a way that she hadn’t expected. With everything in her life in upheaval at the moment, the cold grounded her.

She wandered the campus grounds without paying attention to where she was going. Letting her feet do the walking, as Yang would say. It was a very large campus, larger even than the estate back home, and she could meander with impunity. The pathways wove their way between the more recently built wings of the school and the original pre-War palace, connecting the institutional monarchy of the past with the modern educational institution that was Beacon Academy.

Even the Emerald Tower, once the proud representation of Vale’s ruling class, was now a symbol of the progress of society. The clock tower, with its eight verdant spheres of its inner mechanism, housed not only the administration of the school but also the Kingdom’s central Cross-Continental Transmit System. Where Atlas and Mistral had built separate towers for the CCT relays, Vale had opted to take the Atlesian tech and integrate it with the most prominent symbol of its own identity. It was symbolic; the Kingdom was strong on its own, but it chose to work with the other Kingdoms to strengthen itself even further. And yet, in doing so, still managing to keep its own identity, to take what was offered and make it their own.

Walking through Beacon was settling her mind. Weiss was able to sift through her thoughts without distractions, letting the wind on her face act as a touchstone to her own sense of self.

She was Weiss Schnee, heir to the greatest company on the face of Remnant. Her grandfather founded the company with the strength of his conviction, a firm hand, and a warm heart. The Schnee name _meant_ something, and she still believed in it. It meant trust, dependability, and quality.

_(you are there to represent the family, and by extension the schnee dust company itself)_

Except, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? The first time she met Blake, the faun— the _other girl_ had reacted with scorn and dismay. When they were assigned as teammates, Blake had reacted with distrust and fear. She hadn’t known Weiss long enough at that point to be reacting to her personally.

She had reacted to the _name._

_(people with a lot of money don’t have a lot of friends)_

The Schnee name was supposed to represent trust, but instead it had provoked fear and hatred. Blake being a faunus… well, that would explain it, wouldn’t it?

Father didn’t talk about the White Fang much, and when he did, it was with scorn. Why would he say otherwise? They attacked his guards, stole his merchandise, killed his employees, threatened his board members. Weiss was a target for the White Fang; she’d known that years before she was even supposed to.

She’d never asked why.

_(maybe it’s because we’re tired of being murdered in the streets)_

Her path circled around the fountain, past the administration and lecture buildings, and was taking her back towards the dorms.

There was a lot that wasn’t adding up. Even if Blake was a White Fang; the implication was certainly there in her last statement before running away from—

_(me)_

—the group. But Weiss had been alone with Blake many times over the past few months, and if she was a target, the opportunity was there and Blake hadn’t taken it. Everything Weiss knew about the White Fang was contradicted by Blake’s very presence, let alone Oobleck’s history classes. Even if they were terrorists now, there was a sense of unity and purpose that Father had never talked about.

Why would they be targeting him if there was no need for a civil rights protest to begin with? If his employment was fair and reasonable as he claimed, why did they target Schnee transports and warehouses almost exclusively?

It was a rhetorical question. She already knew. She just didn’t want to think about it. That was the problem, really.

 _You know what you did wrong,_ Yang had said. _And I’m pretty sure you know why. Fix it, try not to do it again, and we’re good._

The corridors of Jinjur Hall were empty, with most students on a Friday evening either down in the city or out on the school grounds. Nobody crossed her path as she made her way down the hallways. It was probably for the best, the way her focus was directed, she’d probably have run someone down.

That’s what she did. Run people over, then blame them for being in her way. She’d done it to Ruby on the first day of school. She’d done it verbally to Blake just a few hours earlier.

“Try not to do it again” would be an ongoing project, but one she could do now that she knew what to pay attention to. “Fix it” was another matter, but she was working that out. Especially since she glanced around and realized where she’d been subconsciously walking towards.

The door at the end of the hallway was closed, but she knocked on it anyway. She didn’t know how to “fix it”, but this was probably a good place to start.

Coco Adel, upperclassman and role model to probably half the Huntresses at Beacon, opened the door and peered over the top of her sunglasses at her. “Evening, Schnee. Everything alright?”

“Not… not exactly,” said Weiss. “I think I made a big mistake.”

Coco gave her a knowing look. “I was wondering when this was going to come up.” Her tone was almost sad, but her eyes were warm and comforting. “We’ll get you sorted out.”

She turned and called out to the room at large. “Hey, Velvet! This one’s for you.”

Coco disappeared from the doorway, replaced after a moment by Velvet Scarlatina. Velvet was more Blake’s friend, though Weiss had seen her around a few times since. Her oversized yellow sweater was off-kilter, falling a bit off one shoulder, and between that and her comfortable-looking brown leggings, she looked cozy. Her ears were folded back against her head, lopsided. She was only slightly taller than Weiss, and everything about her screamed non-threatening.

Weiss almost stopped herself from flinching when she came to the door. Velvet merely raised an eyebrow at this.

“Right,” Velvet said. “I’m glad you came to me. Let’s talk.”

 

* * *

 

Jinjur Hall’s rooftop courtyard was unoccupied, which Weiss was grateful for. She and Velvet didn’t have to go far to find a quiet space for them to talk, and as far as locations went, a rooftop patio in the cool evening breeze wasn’t a bad way to go. The HVAC units rumbled, providing heat for the rest of the building – and also convenient white noise to drown out their conversation against eavesdroppers.

Weiss glanced up across the campus as Velvet kicked aside a pair of battered wooden training swords, clearing a space for them to sit. The courtyard had an impressive view of the Emerald Tower, shining like a beacon against the mountaintops and the stars.

“Alright,” Velvet said, patting the bench next to her in a clear invitation. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Weiss sat down gingerly next to her. She fidgeted a bit as she tried to think of what to say. “I messed up,” she began, picking her words slowly and carefully. “I did something I’m not proud of, and it hurt Blake a lot.”

“Is she alright?” Velvet asked, concern flooding her voice.

“I’m not sure,” said Weiss. “She ran away, and… well, I was kind of hoping that I’d find her with you.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she’s—” Weiss stopped herself. She’d done enough to make Blake uncomfortable already. There was no need to out her secret to someone else. “Because I know you two are friends.”

“We are,” said Velvet. She peered closely at Weiss. “Are you saying you hurt Blake because you reacted poorly to her saying something?”

Weiss hesitated. She still wasn’t sure if she should say anything further. It was hard, she realized, sharing how she felt about a secret without actually revealing the secret. Being painfully aware of how poorly equipped she was to handle everyday social situations was terrible. She had learned just enough to know what the wrong thing to do would be, but not enough to figure out the right way to handle it.

 _Well, if Blake would have told anyone here at Beacon, it would have been Velvet, right?_ That was the prevailing thought at the moment.

_(are you saying that all faunus know each other)_

“Not exactly,” she said eventually. “But sort of?”

Velvet tilted her head to the side. “You said something and _she_ reacted poorly?”

Weiss sucked in a breath through her teeth. “I’m not sure if I should say.”

The rooftop was silent for a minute, as Velvet waited for Weiss. Weiss, in turn, tried to think of a way to describe the situation without making it worse.

After a while, Velvet nodded. “Alright. I think I see what happened. You hurt her specifically because you didn’t know something about her.”

“That’s… yes, that’s it exactly.”

“And then she ran?”

“I…” Weiss stopped. “You really didn’t know about any of this?”

Velvet shook her head. “Not until you showed up.”

“Then why were you expecting me?” Weiss asked. “If Blake didn’t tell you…”

“Because I do know she’s a faunus,” said Velvet, firmly.

Weiss blinked. “I didn’t want to assume…”

“No, that was the right choice,” Velvet confirmed. “I just happened to realize that’s what you were referring to.” She gave Weiss a warm smile. “No, it’s just that, well, a faunus passing for human on the same team as a Schnee? That was a recipe for disaster.”

“I’m not—” Weiss started, then caught herself. No, she was _exactly_ like that. That was the entire problem.

She sighed. “I guess it was inevitable, then.”

“Not inevitable,” said Velvet. “Just very likely. And the fact that you’re here, right now, speaks a lot to me, I hope you realize that.”

“Sure,” Weiss grumbled. “It means that everyone could see what a terrible person I was except me.”

“It means that you recognize what you did wrong and you’re willing to put in the work to fix it,” Velvet corrected.

Weiss took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m… I don’t have the greatest experience with faunus. I was homeschooled, and my father, well. He had Very Specific Opinions.”

Velvet nodded, prompting her to continue.

“I remember one day, there was an accident in the mines. Father tried to keep us away from the stories, but it was all over the news. He was doing press conferences for weeks afterwards.” Weiss shook her head. “For a while, that was all he could talk about. Until the White Fang showed up and started protesting. That was when he got _really_ angry.”

She started clenching and unclenching her fists, not even noticing she was doing it. “One of my tutors, she was upset when the explosion happened. She started showing up late for my lessons, forgetting her books. Klein was covering for her, but eventually word made its way, and Father stormed in to fire her on the spot.”

Weiss noticed her hands and forced them to unclench. “She was crying, pleading with him to keep her job. Her sister worked in the mines, and she hadn’t been able to get ahold of her.”

Velvet gasped. “Was she...?”

Weiss shook her head. “I think she got word that day. She had a niece, I think, in one of the combat schools that fed into Atlas. She was okay, but the parents… no. Father didn’t… he said that a contract was a contract, and he was paying for her to tutor me, so if she wasn’t going to do that…

“She turned red.” Weiss closed her eyes as she remembered that. “Not just angry, I mean. Her skin, it changed color right in front of us.”

“She was a faunus?”

“She was,” said Weiss. “The next thing I remember, I was being rushed upstairs to my room. Father was livid.”

_(This is a disgrace, Klein. To think the filthy things were under my own roof.)_

“He told me later that she was caught working for the White Fang. That she was probably there to kidnap me, use me as leverage against him.”

Velvet winced. “Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know,” Weiss said, truthfully. “I mean… I hope it wasn’t. I really liked her, she taught me a lot, but it was so sudden and everything _changed._ ”

She sniffled. “That’s what I think about when I think of faunus, Velvet. When I first met you, even. I look at you and I hear my Father’s voice, saying that you’re going to hurt me. And that’s stupid, of course you’re not going to hurt me, you’re so _nice_ and _kind_ and I told you that I hurt Blake and drove her away but here you are _talking to me_ and…”

She broke down. She couldn’t hold the tears in anymore. Once the dam broke, everything came spilling out. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to hurt Blake and I don’t want to be mean to you, and Ruby and Yang think I’m such a terrible person and they’re _right_ —”

Velvet leaned forward and pulled Weiss into a hug. Weiss froze up at the sudden contact, but it was just too _much_ and Velvet was whispering soothing things to her, and so she found herself clinging to the girl like a lifeline.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Velvet was saying. “It’ll all be okay.”

By the time Weiss pulled back, the shoulder of Velvet’s sweater was soaked through, but the older girl paid no attention. Weiss sniffled as she got her breathing under control.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Yang said that I needed to fix it, but I don’t know how.”

Velvet smiled. “Talk to Blake. Tell her what you told me, and more importantly, listen to what she has to say.”

“What if that doesn’t make it better?” Weiss asked.

“Then take what you’ve learned and use it as an opportunity to grow.” Velvet shrugged. “I can’t speak for Blake, but I think that the fact that you’re willing to talk to her will matter. Just like it mattered here. But I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a chance that it won’t, and that will happen sometimes. You still have to do the work and be better, even if it hurts.”

Weiss nodded. “I know.”

“Just know this, okay?” Velvet spread her hands wide. “You could have written it off like your father would have, and made it about how hurt you were. But you didn’t. That means something.”

Weiss stared at her for a moment in thought, then nodded again. “I think I understand.”

She glanced at her scroll and winced at the displayed time. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up this late.”

“It’s fine.” Velvet stood up and straightened her sweater. “The others have probably eaten all the popcorn by now, but we can just make more. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Weiss. She felt a lot better about that statement, though. “I don’t know, but I’m going to go back and figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

It was almost too easy for Blake to lose herself in the city. Vale was a large kingdom, and its capital reflected this, with the sprawling industrial sector to the south, the walled upper-class communities at the northern coastline, and the commercial and residential districts scattered across both sides of the river. It was large enough to have a series of raised highways connecting the various boroughs, as each section of the city represented either an older village that was overtaken by urban development, or expansions to the border that were then reinforced and integrated into the rest of the capital.

There was a fenced-off garden next to one of the on-ramps to the highway by the docks. It had fallen into disrepair, with detritus from the overhead construction littering the grounds, the rest of which were overgrown with tall grass, weeds, and wildflowers. Shattered concrete and fallen steel, covered by creeping vines and bushes.

Untamed wilderness fighting to keep a refuge in civilization. It was fitting.

Blake had found and cleared off a bench. She had laid back against it, watching the moon rise and the stars come out. As many stars as would be seen, at least, this close to the light pollution of the active city, but there were still the brighter constellations she knew. She could still pick them out, one by one. There were some she’d had to learn separately, since the constellations were different in Menagerie than in Sanus and Anima, but that was something that her father had made certain to teach her. Always know the stars, and you’d find your way anywhere.

She sought out the stars whenever she felt lost. They helped her get her bearings. The first step was always to find out where you were. Once you knew that, you could figure out where you wanted to go.

Where was Blake? She wasn’t sure. She thought she was part of something, that she’d finally found a new place to belong, and then…

No. Don’t focus on that. She was adrift. She needed to figure out where she _was_.

A dark, shaggy shape blocked out the moon. “Hey. Wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

She sat up and glared. The boy from the docks waved merrily at her from his perch along the top of the fence.

“What do you want?” she growled, reaching for the comforting weight of her weapon.

“Easy there,” said the boy. “I’m not here to fight. You looked like you needed a friend.”

“I don’t even know you,” she snapped.

“I’m Sun!” he replied. “Sun Wukong. I’m here for the tournament, me and the other boys from Haven.”

Blake let go of her blade, but she didn’t move her hand away yet. “You’re a student?”

“Same as you!” said Sun. “I saw your team back there. You know they’re looking for you, right?”

Blake scowled at him. “Why would you care?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sun hopped down from the fence and scooted over to the bench next to her. “Hey, I’m the first person to say that friends are important. And the last, and more than a few times in the middle. That tall blonde with the big muscles went looking for you for a while, and I heard her telling the others that they’d pick up again in the morning.”

Yang was out looking for her, huh? Blake shook her head. “What does that matter to you, though?”

Sun placed his hand over his chest in mock offense. “What, I can’t care about a fellow faunus out in the wild?”

Blake reached up to her bow reflexively. It was still there, the silk ribbon still wrapped tightly. “Does _everyone_ see through that thing?”

“No, it’s good,” said Sun. “I couldn’t even tell, honest.”

Blake narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

“Alright, so I circled back to eavesdrop after the Schnee went down,” Sun admitted. “I heard most of it. And I do feel a tiny bit guilty for causing the scene in the first place.”

He stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “A tiny bit. Like, really, really small. She’s kind of a piece of work, isn’t she?”

“I’m not so sure she’s wrong,” said Blake.

“What? Are you kidding me? That’s a Schnee you’re talking about, as in ‘no benefits, no fair wages, bill you for taking sick days’ Schnee. She had it coming to her.”

“She was getting better,” said Blake. “Listening to people when they talked, asking questions about how other people lived. I was actually thinking she might not freak out if I told her who I was, and then you came in and ruined all of it.”

Sun shook his head. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Schnee’s a Schnee. You did her a favor by letting her have it.” He slid down, propping himself up just by his elbows so he could stare at the moon. “Still, I’m sorry. I made things worse for you, and that was wrong. So, here I am.”

Blake clicked her tongue. He was irritating, but she didn’t really want to be alone. He was right, at least; she could use a friend.

“So why did you run, anyway?” he asked, glancing over at her.

“What do you mean? You said you were eavesdropping.”

“I didn’t stay for the whole thing.” Sun scooted forward even further and dropped his shoulders and head to the ground, putting his arms back and linking his hands behind his head as a cushion. “Saw things were about to go south so I hopped back, and then there you went.”

Blake sighed. “Alright. Where should I start?”

 

* * *

 

They all tried to stay up that night, waiting for Blake. It was quiet, and it was tense, but Weiss had said she was going to put in the work, so she was putting in the work.

Ruby surrendered to sleep first, protesting weakly as Yang and Weiss lifted her into her bed, removing the page of notebook paper plastered to her cheek where she’d fallen. She’d finally accepted it once Yang reminded her that they could go out and look in the morning, and the earlier she went to bed, the sooner she could start back up again.

Yang had crashed shortly after midnight, fighting the day’s exhaustion as much as she could. Searching the city had taken a lot out of her, and it showed – the moment her head hit the pillow, she was out and snoring.

Weiss couldn’t sleep, no matter how much she tried. She stared at the underside of Ruby’s bed, boring holes into the wood with her gaze, but no matter what she tried, she was still wide awake.

Conversations kept going through her head. Things she said. Things she could have done differently. The frightened look in Blake’s eyes when she realized she’d said too much. The hurt and compassion in Velvet’s eyes when Weiss told her what she’d done.

_(fix it, try not to do it again, and we’re good)_

The clock on her scroll said 4:00 AM. If Blake wasn’t back by now, she wasn’t going to be.

She’d told Velvet that she didn’t know what to do. That was irresponsible. She was a Schnee, and she was in command of her own fate. _Other people_ didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t have that luxury.

She crept out of bed and put together an outfit for the day. She was grateful that they didn’t head back to the locker room to put up their weapons before settling in for the night. That was one less thing to worry about.

Boots were buckled. Ammo belt was cinched tight. Myrtenaster was reloaded and ready for the day.

There was one thing that Weiss could do, and she would do it. She’d go out and find her teammate, her _friend_ , and make things right.

 

* * *

**Doctor Oobleck’s History Corner  
** **Change in the White Fang**

It wasn’t so long ago that the White Fang was a reputable organization. Peaceful protests, daring demonstrations, respectful rallies – all of these were held around the world as the White Fang fought for equality in the four kingdoms.

They were met with the expected resistance. Calls for civility, for polite discourse, instead of disrupting the daily lives of “honest, hard-working citizens”. Kingdom council members decried the rallies, despite their clear success in bringing awareness to the public of the plight, the faunus under fire.

All until one day, when the rallies turned into riots. There were rumors of a change of leadership in the organization. This was never confirmed, but the likelihood of such a shift was high, as the peaceful protests gave way to bombings. Strike teams on Schnee Company installations across Remnant made off with mass quantities of merchandise. Kidnappings of board members and politically sensitive targets were particularly popular in the Mistral and Vale regions.

Despite all of this, their mission statement remains the same. Justice for the faunus. It is a worthy goal, and one that should have been granted to them a long time ago.

Please be safe, students, and always treat others with kindness and respect. When the last straw breaks the Nykur’s back, it’s important not to lose sight of the seven thousand that had already been there. Justice must be systemic, or else, is it truly justice at all?

**[This article’s comments have been locked for moderation.]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tavern-cut pizza hasn’t really caught on outside of Vale. Atlas insists that the only kind of pizza is the kind you can fold to hold, while Vacuo has perfected the pan-baked style. Mistral’s venture into the art form has resulted in a variety of artisanal flatbreads that the other Kingdoms don’t fully count as pizza.
> 
> There were actual wars that were less heated than arguments between Kingdom pizza loyalists.


	11. Truth and Reconciliation

Morning. A time of rejuvenation and refreshment, the dawn of a new day. Morning signaled the passing of night, the clearing away of the past, providing a new avenue for the future.

There were seventeen similar statements about morning that stuck within Penny Polendina’s memory, most of them contradictory in both tone and content. It was all fascinating; how different perspectives showed the same event, how people will see almost anything differently from each other. There was nothing so representative of this than descriptive prose about mornings.

Penny liked poetry. She liked a lot of art, in fact. Studying it, encountering new forms, seeing how the artist manipulated their environment to manipulate their audience. Art pulled the strings of the heart and guided the mind.

She walked through the streets of Vale. She had explored those streets that were decorated for the upcoming Festival earlier in the week, and they were interesting enough, but she wanted to see more of the city. She wanted to see the sights, venture into the “beating heart” of the kingdom. She especially wanted to take a look at the museums to see what kind of art Vale had to offer. She wanted to check out the theater district and the off-season productions.

Penny wanted to see how Vale differed from Atlas in those respects. Atlas didn’t really have much art, so much as it had _aesthetic._ Everything was clean-cut, regimented, reserved. Paintings were of important people or landscapes – _which was fine,_ Penny knew and frequently reminded herself, because the soul of the painter was reflected in their art, and it was vastly different from simply taking a picture with a scroll. Aesthetic was _fine,_ and she never thought otherwise.

Design was an art all on its own, her father always said. Creation was nothing without structure, even if the structure wasn’t readily apparent. The rubric by which an artist made their choices was important, and was in itself created for a reason. Design was art given function. Father was very much about function.

It was more that Penny enjoyed the feeling of not being able to sort art into rigid classifications. Her own life was structured, regimented, and documented. She kept pristine logs of her daily activities, she followed the itineraries set by both her father and her Atlas supervisors, all according to code.

The art she liked ran counter to that. The abstract, the impressionist, and especially the kinds that transcended genre and period. There was an uncertainty to all of it, not having specifically approved guidelines by which to judge a work. It was all up to personal interpretation.

It was silly, but Penny felt it was appropriate to have a suitably rebellious adolescence.

In any case, Atlas and Vale had very different ideas on what art was supposed to be. She was very much looking forward to seeing the differences up close. That was why she had ventured away from the Main Street shops and was heading for the museum campus nestled against the mountain.

_“Blake!”_

A far-off cry caught her attention. The voice was familiar, as well. This was notable in and of itself, since Penny had only just arrived in the city a few days ago. But there it was, calling out again.

_“Blake! Where are you?”_

Penny shifted her jaw and clenched her teeth. One of the things Father had taught her, over anything else, was that helping people was of the highest priority. It didn’t matter what he was doing or who he was doing it for, when someone came to him looking for help, he dropped everything. It was something she admired about him.

She amended her itinerary. The museums weren’t going anywhere. This was more important: Someone Needed Help.

She found them the next street over. Two of the girls from yesterday’s collision, poking their heads into buildings and calling out for their friend. Neither of them looked like they had slept well.

“Good morning, Ruby! Good morning, Yang!” Penny waved to them as she approached. “It’s a lovely day, don’t you think?”

_Strategy: Be approachable. Let them come to you._

“Hey, Penny,” said Ruby, giving her a smile. “What brings you out here?”

“I was out for a walk, thought I’d explore the city a bit today,” said Penny, truthfully. “As of right now, I have no other plans. How about you?”

“We’re looking for our friend,” said Ruby. She brightened up. “Hey, you wouldn’t have happened to see her, have you?”

“You mean the faunus girl?” asked Penny. She had heard them calling out for Blake specifically and not Weiss, but it was always good to get confirmation.

Ruby and Yang glanced at each other. “Yeah,” said Ruby, “but how did you know that?”

“She has cat ears,” Penny said, matter-of-fact.

“Wait, she does?” asked Ruby. “She always wears that… oh, the bow. That makes sense.”

Yang nodded. “Yeah, that’s her. Have you seen her?”

“Not since yesterday,” said Penny. “When she was with you and Weiss. Are you also looking for her?”

_“...and she does really like tuna.”_

“Not specifically,” said Yang. “She was gone when we woke up this morning, but Ruby texted her and it turned out that she went out looking for Blake too. We need to have a talk with her about the importance of leaving notes, but that can probably wait a bit.”

“Wait, Yang,” Ruby interjected. “Did you already know about the bow?”

“Yeah, it twitches when she’s upset. I don’t think she knows she’s doing it.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I didn’t want to call attention to it.”

“...is that why you got anchovy pizza?” Ruby scrunched up her nose in disgust.

Yang shook her head. “Seriously, Ruby, who else do you know who eats that stuff?”

“Dad does.”

Yang made a derisive noise. “Dad’s _weird._ ”

Penny’s gaze bounced back and forth between the girls, trying to follow the conversation as best as she could. They seemed to be receptive to her presence, as much as they were focused on finding their friend, so that was a step in the right direction.

_Strategy: Offer assistance without being an imposition._

“Would you like an extra set of eyes?” Penny asked, keeping her voice pitched pleasantly. Not over-eager, but genuinely interested in helping. “I’m pretty good at finding things.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Ruby, glancing at Yang. “Three is better than two.”

“Are you sure we wouldn’t be taking you away from anything?” asked Yang.

“I have no other plans,” Penny repeated. “I wanted to explore the city, and this is as good a way of doing it as any! Especially if I’m with friends.”

She hesitated. “We _are_ friends, aren’t we? You said so yesterday.”

Doubt flooded her thought processes. What if she had misinterpreted Ruby’s remark? She remembered how casually it had been made; not quite an afterthought, almost a passing comment. Penny hadn’t had many opportunities to socialize, but she did understand the concept of polite fiction. Was that one of those cases?

Ruby blinked. “Of course. If you want to be, that is. I didn’t want to assume...”

“Sensational!” Penny grinned at Ruby. “Then as your friend, I would be more than happy to help you search. It’ll be fun!”

“Sure,” said Yang, less than enthused. “Fun.”

“Be nice,” said Ruby. “Penny, we’re both glad to have you along.”

Penny beamed at her. She fell easily into step behind the sisters, keeping her eyes open and searching for their faunus friend. This was the better choice after all, she realized with glee. Not only would she get to see parts of the city that weren’t originally on her itinerary, but she would be doing so with friends.

She’d be sure to include that on her report to the General. Penny was certain that he’d be thrilled to hear that she was making such fast friends.

 

* * *

**Chapter Eleven  
** **Truth and Reconciliation**

* * *

 

“Alright,” said Sun around half a bagel, which he had just snatched from a nearby table with his tail and stuffed casually into his mouth, “I just have one question.”

“Is it about my bow?” Blake asked, keeping her voice level. He’d been stealing glances at it all morning. It had started out irritating, but had grown and evolved over the course of the morning to full-on anxiety and paranoia.

“I have two questions,” Sun said, not missing a beat.

“You realize I don’t actually have to talk to you right now, right?”

“No, but here you are,” said Sun, spreading his arms wide. “That says more about you than it does about me. You need to talk to _someone_ about this. It doesn’t have to be me, but I’m already here.”

Blake narrowed her eyes. If she didn’t dignify that with a response, she didn’t have to admit that he was right.

He had a point, too; she had needed to get some things off her chest. They had stayed up talking in that hidden park as long as they could stay awake, then camped out beneath the stars, picking up where they had left off the following morning.

She told him everything. How she’d been involved with the White Fang for as long as she could remember, holding signs while her parents protested, following the rallies from Kingdom to Kingdom. How everything had changed when Sienna Khan took over, and her parents had left the movement in protest. How she’d called them cowards and ran to Vale, where she learned guerilla warfare and, as she begrudgingly admitted even now, terrorism under Adam Taurus.

How she ran when she realized, too late, that she had gone too far.

He’d listened patiently, taking over the conversation when she needed a break to collect her thoughts and gather herself. He talked about anything and everything during those breaks, providing a welcome distraction from the crushing weight of the past she was dredging up. About his team at Haven, about growing up in Vacuo, about his hopes for the Vytal Festival and the fun he was expecting to have while in Vale.

Their conversation had taken them from the abandoned garden to the merchant docks, where they’d stopped for breakfast at a quiet seaside cafe. The looks they were getting from the normal clientele were about as scalding as their coffee, but at the moment, Blake was too emotionally drained to care.

Sun was easy to talk to. He was loud and excitable, the sort of matter-of-fact presence that was direct, but not necessarily rude. It was sort of like talking to Yang and Ruby, in that respect. Besides, it was always good to talk to another faunus.

Blake sighed. “What’s your question?”

“Why the bow?”

She forcibly unclenched her jaw. “What’s your _other_ question?”

Sun held his hands up defensively. “Alright, fine, I won’t ask about the bow. Even though I think you’d look better without it—”

Blake narrowed her eyes and twitched her hand towards her weapon.

“— _which isn’t nearly as important as your own choices and feelings on the matter,_ ” he finished hurriedly. He dropped his hands and gave her a sheepish grin. “Hey, I do know that humans aren’t as accepting of us outside of Vacuo, give me _some_ credit.”

Blake just stared at him.

“Fine, fine, okay. So what I don’t understand is, why Vale?”

“...what?” Blake tilted her head as she tried to make sense of the question.

Sun grabbed the pitcher of water and poured himself another glass. “You ditched the White Fang and instead of going home, you enroll in a Huntsman Academy, try to change the world that way. I get that.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Blake protested.

Sun nodded. “Right, no, I get it. I’m talking broad level. So you look at your options, and out of all your options, you choose: Beacon.” He held up his hands, palms out, pantomiming the act of framing the words as he said them.

“...where are you going with this?” asked Blake. She suddenly felt herself go on the defensive, though she was not entirely certain why.

Sun frowned in thought, then held up four fingers. “Okay. So, Vacuo’s kind of a rough area, right? But literally nobody there cares if you’re a faunus or a human, so Shade would be a good place to escape notice.”

He ticked Shade off his fingers as he talked. “Mistral’s not the greatest, but there are a lot of opportunities if you’re willing to ignore the more blatantly racist bits of it, and the upper levels of the capital are a lot nicer. Plus as a student you can piss off the people who glare at you, and that’s always a bonus.”

He put another finger down.

“How is that a bonus?” Blake asked. “You’re just putting a target on your back.”

Sun shook his head. “It’s about making things fair, one smug jerk at a time. Where was I?”

“Haven.”

“Right. So Haven’s a minefield but can be worth it, I can personally attest to it. Atlas, on the other hand...”

Blake grimaced. “Definitely wasn’t an option.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Sun grinned at her. “I mean, that’s the last place a former White Fang member on the run would go, right? You could hide in plain sight.”

Blake started to respond to that, but stopped herself. She hadn’t thought about it that way before.

“Although then you’d have to be in _Atlas_ ,” Sun continued, shrugging his shoulders. “So it’s not perfect.”

He held up his last finger. “So that leaves Vale. Which, sure, it’s a nice place. Clean air, quiet countryside. Got a bit of a heavy White Fang presence outside the city borders, but nothing’s perfect, right?”

Blake knew exactly what kind of presence the White Fang had outside the Kingdom. She’d helped set up most of those outposts.

“It was convenient,” she said after a moment. “It’s not really any more complicated than that.”

Sun narrowed his eyes, peering at her closer than she was comfortable with. She forced herself to not look away, staring him down.

“Alright, if you say so,” he said, shrugging. He stretched his arms out and practically leapt out of his chair. “So what’s your plan now?”

She sighed and dropped her gaze to her own breakfast. “I’m not sure. I didn’t really think this through.”

“Are you giving up on the whole Huntress thing?”

“No!”

All around her, heads turned, people staring briefly at the loud noise. She hunched down into her seat, unsuccessfully trying to hide, but she didn’t exactly blame them. She was startled by how forcefully she’d responded, how visceral the answer was.

And yet, it was appropriate. Giving up on being a Huntress? That was completely out of the question. Beacon was the first place she’d felt like she belonged in a long time. Fighting Grimm, learning to help protect the world – humans and faunus alike – was the closest she’s felt to finding actual purpose in years.

She _wanted_ to be here.

“No,” she said again, softer but still with just as much conviction. “I _am_ a Huntress. That’s not something I can just give up.”

Sun beamed at her. “Well, that settles it. Gonna head back to your friends?”

“...not yet.” Blake shook her head. “I can’t leave things the way they were and just go back like nothing happened.”

“Why not?”

She stood up from the table, her head clear, her belly full, and her heart steady and sure. As irritating as Sun had been, this talk was exactly what she needed.

“Because then it’ll just keep happening,” she said. She pulled out her wallet and left a pair of lien cards on the table. “The argument started with the White Fang, and it needs to end with it. Either Weiss is right, and they’re behind these robberies, or they’re not. Either way, we need to find proof.”

Sun hopped onto the fence that sectioned off the cafe’s patio with the rest of the street, waiting for her to exit through the gate like a normal person. “Oh?”

“Yes. Weiss will accept that, whichever way it ends up, and then we can deal with it and move on. I’m not having this hanging over our heads for the next three and a half years.” She stopped, glancing up the street, then back down the other way. “I just… don’t know where to start.”

“Well, today’s your lucky day,” Sun said, hopping down to the sidewalk next to her. “I know just the place.”

 

* * *

 

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Weiss pulled out her scroll and marked an area off her map. She had gone through every shaded section, calling out Blake’s name, asking shopkeepers and passersby if they’d seen anyone matching her description. Thus far, the search had turned up nothing, but she wasn’t discouraged; she would continue her efforts until every stone in the city had been overturned. Even if there were an awful _lot_ of stones in Vale.

She had to be making good headway, at least. She’d covered all the way from the shuttle landing to the Soleil Clinic on Gillikin before dawn, then circled out from there. From sunrise to noon, she’d covered the entire area from the North Gate to the river, and backtracked all the way to the mountainside underneath Beacon itself. The search had slowed down once businesses opened, as she knocked on doors and took the time to ask shop owners questions, but she felt confident about her progress.

How much had she covered, actually? That was the real question she asked herself; she didn’t know Vale nearly as well as the compound around her home and the SDC headquarters. One quick swipe of the map zoomed it out, comparing her progress against the layout of the city proper.

The sections of the map she’d filled in stood in stark contrast to the rest of the city, bright SDC white shining merrily in the corner of the screen. The very, very small corner of the screen, almost unnoticeable against the rest of the map. Weiss had been walking for _six hours_ and she’d barely made a _dent._

As it turned out, searching a city with a population of a few hundred thousand people was _hard._ Especially if the search was for just one person who, apparently, Weiss hadn’t known nearly as well as she thought she had.

She was _trying_ to do this the right way. Going door to door, person to person, asking about her friend… wasn’t this supposed to be how it worked? She was making an effort to be Shiny Happy Friendly Weiss, like Ruby had suggested. But six hours of searching – eight, if she included the initial walk from the shuttle port – and what did she have to show for it? A useless map, barely filled in, blinking unhelpfully at her.

It was like she said before: she didn’t know how to people. She didn’t know where to start.

...where was she, anyway? This part of downtown had more offices than storefronts, with mid-rise towers lining the streets along the river. There weren’t so much as parking lots as parking garages, and the strips of grass along the road were partially fenced off. It reminded her a lot more of Atlas than the parts of Vale that Amber and her team had taken her to.

She frowned and dug out her scroll again. Vale was a major city, the capital of the kingdom, and that meant it had specific resources. The CCT tower up at Beacon was one of them, the airship landing and the harbor were more. Vale was an economic powerhouse by its very nature, and that meant…

There. Two blocks away from her, a Schnee Dust Company office. Regional headquarters, no less.

Weiss allowed herself a predatory grin. She wasn’t that far outside her comfort zone after all. Perhaps Business Weiss was the right person for this job after all.

 

* * *

 

“Ruby, may I ask a question?”

Ruby glanced back. Penny was still back behind them, keeping pace with her and Yang despite peering into every window and down every alley they passed. She’d been mostly silent all morning, as well; choosing to let Ruby and Yang take the lead in the search, letting them ask the questions.

“Sure, Penny,” Ruby said, giving the girl what she hoped was a reassuring smile. The day had dragged on for a while, and she was concerned everyone was probably getting tired. “What is it?”

“Why are you looking for Blake?”

The question was asked so simply that Ruby too surprised to answer it at first.

“What do you mean by that?” Yang countered, her voice a bit harsher than Ruby would have expected. “She’s our teammate, we’re worried about her.”

Penny turned away from a clothing store’s window display. She stared at Yang for a moment, confused, before her eyes widened in shock. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant! I’m sorry, Yang, of course you’re searching for her because she’s missing. What I meant to say was, why is she missing?”

“Oh,” said Yang, somewhat mollified. “We’re… not entirely sure.”

Penny peered closely at her. “You’re not?”

“Blake might not be who we thought she was,” said Ruby. “And when we found that out, she got scared and ran.”

Penny gasped. “Is she a _spy?_ ”

“What? No!” Ruby protested. She paused, though, playing back that conversation in her head. “Well. I don’t think so. But I think she might think we think she is.”

“You said ‘think’ like twelve times there,” Yang pointed out.

“You _know what I meant._ ”

“Do I? Are you sure about that?”

Penny furrowed her brow in thought. “Why would you think she was a spy?”

“We don’t,” explained Ruby. “That’s the problem. She and Weiss had an argument, and she said something that I don’t think she was ready to say, and she was probably afraid that we wouldn’t react well, and she ran before we could tell her.”

Penny nodded thoughtfully. “Because she’s your friend, and your opinion of her matters to her, but she was afraid to tell you in case it changed.”

“That’s about right,” said Yang.

“I don’t have many friends,” Penny said slowly, as if she was choosing every word with care. “But if I did, I’d want them to talk to me about things.”

“It’s not always that simple,” said Ruby. “Sometimes it’s scary to tell friends something about yourself that you’re not sure you want to tell. It might be a secret that isn’t yours to tell, or you might be afraid of how they’ll react, or you might not be sure about it and you don’t want to say until you do know.”

Penny was silent for a moment.

“Blake didn’t tell us she was a faunus,” Yang clarified. “The way that it came out, it sounded like she was expecting us to hate her for it. Especially with what she and Weiss were arguing about.”

“Do you?”

“Absolutely not,” said Yang vehemently. “Blake’s our teammate.”

Penny tilted her head. “Then why would she run away?”

“We have no idea,” said Ruby, shaking her head. “Maybe when we find her, she’ll tell us. Until then…”

Yang slammed her right fist into her left palm. “Until then, we buckle down and keep looking for her, so that she knows that she’s safe with us.”

“I see,” said Penny.

Her face, however, said otherwise. Ruby filed that away under “things to ask about under better circumstances”. It was distressing how large that pile was getting these days.

 

* * *

 

Unlike the Fisherman’s Pier up the coast, which boasted a boardwalk lined with shops, cafés, and casual dining restaurants, the shipping port down south was far more utilitarian. The shipyards themselves were filled with cranes and shipping containers, waiting either to be loaded onto a freighter or stacked onto a train to Vacuo. Schnee Dust mines were on every continent, sending uncut crystal back and forth to various refineries and storage depots, but Vale was also a primary port of harbor for all of Sanus. Manufactured goods and electronics came in from Atlas, textiles and produce from Mistral, and while trains did run to and from Vacuo, raw stone and steel was more efficiently sent across the sea than by rail.

Warehouses surrounded the primary train depot and lined the streets along the docks, blocking line of sight in most directions. Sunlight streaming from the west bounced off the rippling waves, scattering the light into dazzling displays of color. It was the perfect cover for Blake to get into position.

Her vantage point was perfect. The setting sun cast deep shadows across the buildings, and the rooftops were no exception. She was nestled in across the street from the primary SDC warehouse, crouched low to stay in the shadow of a rumbling HVAC unit. She had her scroll out, the camera trained on the stacks of snowflake-branded containers waiting to be moved, the display zoomed in as far as she could. Battery was running low, but she still had time before she needed to recharge it.

It was almost too easy to slip back into her training. Finding and exploiting a gap in surveillance to stake out a location of interest; these were the skills she’d developed for situations exactly like this one. It was simultaneously comforting and concerning how easily she was able to fall back into old habits.

Granted, the last time she spied on a Schnee warehouse, _she_ was the one robbing it.

She flicked her ears at the sound of a soft thump beside her, then turned her attention back to the warehouse. “Nothing so far,” she reported.

“Aw, seriously?” Sun complained, crouching down next to her. His tail whipped around and pressed a pair of binoculars to his eyes, holding it in place. His arms were otherwise occupied; a half-eaten apple in his right hand and a small wicker basket of sandwiches cradled in his left. “We’ve been here for hours already, what’s the hold-up?”

Blake glared at him. “I thought we were going to prove that it _wasn’t_ the White Fang. Them not being here is a good thing.”

“Well, _sure,_ but it’s a lot harder to prove that they’re not coming to ransack the place than it is to confirm they did.” Sun took a bite of his apple. “Besides, _someone_ is going to steal it, and the sooner we can tell who it is, the sooner we can leave.”

She shook her head. “Are you sure?”

“From what you told me, they’ve been hitting every truck, storefront, and warehouse in the city,” said Sun. “When my ship came in yesterday, the crew was complaining about having to be diverted around a whole Schnee freighter coming to resupply the city. There’s _no way_ they’re going to pass this one up.”

“Then it’s settled,” said Blake resolutely. “We wait.”

Sun grumbled as he settled down on the rooftop. He held out the basket. “I was afraid you’d say that. I lifted some food while we wait.”

Blake sighed. She did not take a sandwich. “You stole it, you mean.”

“I _liberated them,_ thank you very much.” Sun finished his apple. “Lady was trying to charge me five lien each when the sign clearly said three.”

“So you just took them.”

“I put a fiver down on the cart,” Sun clarified. “Call the rest a racism tax.”

“A _racism tax._ ”

Sun nodded. “Yeah, you know. Like how I stowed away on that ship; there was a whole faunus family that had to pay twice what the humans did. I got a free ticket out of it, and they only lost money that wasn’t theirs in the first place. It’s victimless.”

“It’s still breaking the law,” she said.

Sun laughed. “Hey, weren’t you in a cult or something?”

Blake glared at him.

“Alright, too soon,” said Sun, holding up his hands defensively. He set the basket of sandwiches on the ground and dropped his apple core into it. “Look, you said it yourself, those White Fang is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. I totally get why you left, but I also understand why you joined in the first place. You want to make things fair.”

“So?”

Sun gestured towards the apples. “ _So,_ that’s the same thing. I know it’s illegal to discriminate against faunus in Vale, but that doesn’t stop the people who think they can get away with it.”

He took a sandwich. “Now she knows she can’t get away with it, and she’ll think twice before trying it again.”

“ _Or,_ she’ll report it, get the money back from insurance, and judge other faunus twice as hard,” said Blake. “I left because going against the system was only making it worse for everybody.”

“The system breaks down at both ends, Blake.” Sun grabbed another sandwich and offered it to her again. “I’m just trying to make things fair.”

“Is that why you took Weiss’s package?” she asked. “To teach her a lesson?”

“That cheap jewelry? That’s less than a drop in the bucket for her, she won’t miss it.”

“It was supposed to be a gift for someone she cared about,” said Blake. “You didn’t see how upset she was.”

“Oh.” Sun looked genuinely taken aback. “That… was not a thing I had considered.”

They fell into an awkward silence as Blake turned her attention back to the warehouse. There still was no sign of intruders.

“Sooo,” said Sun, stretching out the syllable as one would extend a fishing line. “How come you haven’t told your friends any of this?”

She blinked, blindsided by the question. “What?”

“You’ve been with them for months. It never came up in conversation?”

“I…” Blake fell silent. It’d be easy to say that it never came up, but the truth was that she’d been extremely careful to ensure it wouldn’t. She’d heard multiple stories about Ruby and Yang’s dad and uncle, and she couldn’t avoid learning more about Weiss’s role as heiress. But she’d made a point to not talk much about herself.

“It’s not that simple,” she said. She focused extra hard on the stakeout; there would be another guard sweep in a moment. They weren’t usually this late, though...

“It’s always that simple,” said Sun. “You tell your friends things. If they care about you, they’ll listen. If they don’t want to hear it, and they don’t care about you, they aren’t your friends.”

The light at the northern guardpost was out. Something was wrong. “Shut up,” she hissed, panning her scroll around to find the other guards.

“Hey, if you want to let it fester, that’s your prerogative—”

“No, not that.” Lights started going out in the warehouse. “They’re here.”

 

* * *

 

It happened all at once.

Two guards patrolled the grounds around the SDC warehouse, moving from one end of the compound to the other. The route took them from the back door, through the loading bay, to the front door, to the gate guardpost, and back around the other side, then turned around and went back the same way. The guards were in sight of at least two checkpoints at all times, except for a brief stretch between the employee entrance and the loading docks, when they were only in view of the windows of the second floor office.

The lights in the office went out just before the guards passed. The sentries on the inside had been silenced just moments before – which left nobody to witness the disposal of the patrolling guards.

The moment the patrol was dealt with, the rest of the team struck. No alarms were tripped. There was nobody left to sound them.

 

* * *

 

“It’s too clean,” said Blake, grabbing the binoculars from Sun. She searched the grounds by the guard stations, knowing she wouldn’t find anything obvious. “This was coordinated.”

“You think it’s—?”

Blake didn’t get a chance to answer. Sun’s voice was drowned out by the sudden appearance of a Bullhead, the engines roaring over their position. If they hadn’t been nestled in behind the air conditioning unit…

The Bullhead swept down into the empty loading bay. The side panels opened, and Blake felt her heart drop out of her chest altogether.

Black hoods. White jumpsuits. Bone-white masks with black eyeslits, obscuring the facial features of those who wore them. And emblazoned on their backs, the blood-red emblem of the White Fang.

She hadn’t wanted to believe it was them. She’d stolen Dust with them before, but never more than one shipment at a time. They’d never terrorized an entire capital city, never harmed anyone who didn’t deserve it.

Except they had. And she had always known. That was why she had left in the first place. But still, it was different to feel like they were slipping than to actually see it. She didn’t think he’d—

She didn’t think _they’d_ have fallen so far, so fast.

“Is that them?” Sun asked again.

Despite herself, Blake nodded. “It’s them.”

“Damn. I guess we both owe Schnee an apology.”

It didn’t make sense. Why the capital? Why throttle Dust coming in to the entire Kingdom itself? The biggest score they’d hit while she was there was a train coming in from Vacuo, and even that was a one-off job, to resupply the camp and to hurt the SDC in their bottom line.

Vale had civilians, many of whom were _faunus._ They needed Dust available in the city just like everyone else. This wasn’t just going to hurt the shareholders.

This was going to hurt _everyone._

“Adam…” she muttered to herself. “What are you even _doing?_ ”

A few of the White Fang that had jumped out of the Bullhead circled back and pulled out the airship’s loading ramp. The rest moved towards the stacked shipping containers and started breaking locks, grabbing whatever crates they could carry.

“Should we stop them?” asked Sun. “I mean, it’s a bit over our heads, but they’ll be long gone before the police get here.”

“I just needed confirmation,” Blake responded, tapping her scroll. She saved the last few still frames to internal memory and prepared to close it down, when one last person exited the Bullhead.

White coat. Black bowler hat. Vivid orange hair. She knew that face, she’d seen it on the news at least once a week since term began. Especially once it came out how Ruby had claimed early admission to Beacon in the first place.

Roman Torchwick. Working with the White Fang.

She needed to get closer. She needed to find out _why._

 

* * *

 

“Gotta love these Vale evenings,” said Roman as he sauntered down the loading ramp. “The cool ocean breeze, the sound of the waves crashing against the pier. Really makes you think, doesn’t it?”

He stopped at the bottom of the ramp and pulled out a pocket watch. There was no real need for it; his scroll told the time just as well. Sometimes it was just about _style._ “The thought running through _my_ head at the moment is _why isn’t the Dust loaded yet?_ ”

The ranking White Fang goon came over to talk. “Scouts said the guards were late. They had to make sure there wasn’t going to be a problem.”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem,” said Roman, rolling his eyes. “We’re on a clock here, and it’s not like I’m paying you by the hour.”

The grunts started moving the crates onto the airship, glaring at him as they passed. Roman didn’t pay them any attention. That would only encourage them.

He lit a cigar, shielding the tip from the wind until it caught. That in itself was also unnecessary – Neo had replaced his old lighter a few weeks ago with a fancy new one. It had a precision Dust-enhanced flame; he couldn’t blow it out if he tried. Still, habits were what they were.

He realized the lieutenant was talking to him again. What was his name? Filius? Fenris? Fido? Something like that.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” said Roman. “Say it again?”

“Where’s the woman that usually works with us?” Fido repeated. “We were expecting her instead.”

“She’s on assignment.” Roman shook his head. “Got a special project going on, so tonight it’s me holding the choke chains. Is that going to be a problem?”

“...no.”

Roman lazily waved his cigar towards the open containers, where the rest of the White Fang were hard at work. “Then let’s get moving, we’ve got ten minutes until the cops realize we’re here. We’re not exactly being stealthy, here.”

The lieutenant loped off, grumbling under his breath.

Roman chuckled to himself. Neo was right; as much as he’d found the idea of working with the White Fang irritating, it really was working out in his favor. They were reasonably competent at their jobs, didn’t complain much, and were certainly obedient, if somewhat offended to be taking orders from a human. Not that he blamed them, certainly. Humans were the _worst._

Humans, faunus, none of that mattered to Roman Torchwick. He had one goal in mind, and if he had to pour oil on the flames of revolution to achieve it? Well, that was just the price of business—

A blade appeared at his throat. The arm that held it appeared from the shadows, circling around his shoulders to rest a sharpened point right at the hollow of his throat. Another hand grabbed his arm at the wrist, holding his cane in place against his hip.

“Don’t move,” a voice hissed in his ear. “Or I put an end to your whole operation right now.”

Roman sighed. So much for reasonably competent.

 

* * *

 

Torchwick tensed, and Blake pressed the flange of her blade just a bit harder against his throat. “I said, don’t move.”

“Take it easy, little lady,” said Torchwick, holding his left hand out to the side. Acrid smoke wafted from the cigar, tickling her nose. She forced herself not to sneeze. “I’d rather we not do anything you’re going to regret.”

Her ears twitched under her bow. Impulsively, she reached up and tore it off, tossing it to the wind. “Brothers of the White Fang,” she called out, hoping against hope that they’d listen. That there might be someone there that recognized her and would listen.

Hoping, simultaneously, that there _wasn’t_ anyone that recognized her.

She rallied herself and continued. “Why are you working with this _human?_ Why would you throw away everything that we’ve worked for?”

She was met with glares and silence. If there was any glimmer of familiarity in the sea of black, white, and red, it was hidden under those damned Grimm masks.

Torchwick’s shoulders shook. She adjusted her grip on her blade, until she realized he wasn’t trying to break free.

He was _laughing._

“Oh, isn’t this precious? We’ve got ourselves a True Believer.” He gestured with his cigar, waving it around carelessly. “Didn’t you get the memo? The White Fang and I are going into business together. Between the two of us, we _own_ this town.”

“The White Fang I know would _never_ work with someone like you,” Blake hissed.

Torchwick’s voice went low and dangerous. “Things change.”

She almost missed it. She was so focused on what he was doing with his cigar that she only noticed that he’d moved the tip of his cane back towards her feet when she felt his shoulder tense up.

Her shadow clone propelled her backwards. The fireball that erupted from the tip of Torchwick’s cane consumed the clone entirely, and the force of the explosion sent her careening into the side of a container.

She dropped another clone just before impact, letting it crash into the corrugated steel as it propelled her back into the fray.

Her weapons crashed into Torchwick’s cane, forcing him onto the defensive as she traded blows. She spun as she attacked, twirling the lighter blade in her right hand around to prod for openings. Those were followed by the bladed sheath in her left, crashing through his defenses with the sheer weight of it, trading finesse for power. There was balance in those strikes, quick and darting, heavy and sweeping, each a complement to the other. It was a form designed to shield herself from counterattacks, always making sure to keep one weapon free to deal with any reprisal or to take advantage of any opening.

Torchwick was no slouch, however, meeting every strike with the curved steel of his cane. He expended just as much effort as he needed to turn her blades aside, and whenever he couldn’t parry, he outright hammered the swords out of their intended path with brute strength.

It _hurt_ when he did that, too. The shock of the blow carried through the Dust-etched steel and rippling through her arms. Her blades went wide, and she couldn’t bring them back in time.

Torchwick grinned and thrust the tip of his cane directly into her face. The base flipped open to reveal the barrel of the gun. The miniature rocket exploded in her face – or it would have, had she not dropped another clone and taken the second to swing around behind him.

_An opening!_

She crossed her blades and scissored them outwards as she struck at his back, a practiced move designed to tear straight through her opponent’s Aura… or to deal a devastating blow against an enemy with no Aura left to defend against it. It was a move especially effective against Beowolves, Ursai, and…

...well, she’d never used it for its _other_ intended target, no matter what Adam had wanted.

Her blades met resistance, clashing against the shaft of Torchwick’s cane. He had swung it directly over his shoulder after firing at her shadow clone, almost as if he was anticipating her attack.

“Funny thing about illusions, kitten,” he said, spinning around to bat her blades aside again. “They’d work even better if I didn’t have a fantastic sparring partner.”

Without waiting for her to respond, he reversed his grip on his cane and slammed the handle directly into her stomach.

She bent over, fighting the urge to retch. This turned out to be a _bad reflex,_ as he followed up that strike by bringing the handle up against her chin. She lost her footing and fell backwards.

“Say goodnight, kitty cat,” Torchwick taunted. He flipped his cane back around and aimed the barrel of his miniature rocket launcher upwards and firing. Too late, she saw the container suspended by a loading crane, directly overhead. The rocket struck the chain holding the container, shattering it.

Blake scrabbled to the side, trying to roll away from the container as it fell directly on top of her. She wasn’t going to make it, she _wasn’t going to make it_ —

Something grabbed her from underneath and _pulled._ She skidded backwards, almost frictionless, able to do little more than watch thirteen hundred pounds of corrugated steel crash into the concrete right where she had been only moments before.

She glanced down. Directly underneath her, suspending her less than an inch above the pavement, there was a scintillating white snowflake-patterned glyph, rotating almost lazily. It disappeared, gently lowering her back down to the ground, and a perfectly-manicured hand dropped into view to help her up.

“We need to talk,” said Weiss.

 

* * *

 

They’d stopped at a coffee shop, both to gather information and to refresh themselves after a long day of searching.

Despite Ruby and Yang’s multiple apologies for capitalizing her day, Penny still stuck with them, insisting that she could help. Ruby was glad for the help, too; three heads were always better than two, and having an outside perspective was definitely a benefit. Penny asked questions that Ruby hadn’t even considered, made suggestions on how to change their route that turned out to be more efficient, and kept up with pleasant and cheerful conversation the whole way.

Even if the questions were strange sometimes.

“No, I don’t think they list the exact pH balance of their coffee blend on the cups,” said Yang. “You could probably check on their site?”

“That is a great idea,” said Penny. “I’ll make sure to do that.”

Ruby tilted her head and peered at her. “How come you wanted to know that?”

“Strong acids don’t play nice with my insides,” said Penny simply.

“Ohhh,” said Ruby. She smiled at her. “That’s alright, I understand medical conditions. Yang couldn’t eat citrus until she was eight.”

“That wasn’t a medical thing,” said Yang. “That was Dad getting a sack of oranges a week past their prime without noticing.”

“Wait, that was why? I don’t remember having any bad oranges.”

“He threw them out after I got sick. I didn’t trust any fruit after that.”

Penny opened her mouth to comment. Whatever she was about to say, however, was drowned out by a loud noise from outside. The windows rattled from the force.

“Was that—?” Ruby began.

“An explosion,” said Yang. “Come on.”

They ran outside just as a second explosion went off. This time they could see the flash coming from the southwest, over near the docks.

“Thaaaaat’s not a blown transformer,” Ruby mused. Her hand was already moving to the small of her back, where Crescent Rose rested comfortably in its frame.

“One could be an accident,” said Yang. “Two is an attack.”

“No accident,” Penny said from behind them. She was staring into the distance, her gaze fixed on some point Ruby couldn’t identify. “Compressed Dust shells, detonated at close range. Flame and Earth mix. Low-heat, high-impact.”

A third explosion punctuated her statement.

Ruby and Yang glanced at each other, no words needed. As one, they hightailed it for the shipyards. The somewhat heavy footsteps behind them meant that Penny was not far behind.

 

* * *

 

After being helped to her feet, Blake took a moment to take a breath and check her weapons.

Weiss covered her while she did, blocking off the easy paths to their position with a jagged wall of ice. Ice was easy, it didn’t even take as much Dust to form as most people thought it did. Most of its mass was generated from the ambient moisture in the air, the rest was just moving it to where it was supposed to go.

“What are you doing here?” Blake asked eventually. Her gaze darted back and forth across the lot, from the crashed container to the ice wall. Everywhere that Weiss wasn’t.

“Helping,” said Weiss. The sound of metal crashing against metal rang out from behind the wall; someone else had jumped into the fray. “You didn’t come home last night.”

Now Blake raised her head and met Weiss’s eyes, staring at her with such intensity that Weiss almost looked away herself. “Why do you care?”

“Because I—”

Another _whump_ of a miniature explosion, and a shaggy blond boy came careening over the crashed container. He landed with a grunt and pushed himself to his feet.

“Sun!” Blake yelled, her eyes wide. She launched herself in the opposite direction, back over the wall and into the fray once more.

“Oh don’t mind me,” said the boy – Sun, apparently. “Just thought I’d drop in, I’m fine.”

He glanced over at Weiss and grinned sheepishly. “Hey, Schnee, how’s it going?”

Weiss narrowed her eyes. “You. You’re the one who robbed me.”

Sun reached back to scratch the back of his head. “Heh, yeah, good times. Seems like only yesterday.”

“It _was_ yesterday.”

“Yeah, the funny thing about that is, gotta make sure Blake doesn’t get herself killed, _okaybye~!_ ”

He reached back and drew his weapon, a swiftly-unfolding red and gold staff. Then, giving Weiss a jaunty wave, he leapt away and followed after Blake.

Figures. She couldn’t even apologise right without everything falling apart.

 

* * *

 

Blake landed in a crouch and tensed herself to spring forward at Torchwick.

“There you are, kittycat,” he said, far too jovially. “I was wondering where you’d run off to.”

“What’s your game?” Blake hissed. “What’s all the Dust for?”

Torchwick sighed. “I’d love to tell you, really I would. But time is short and _we have a schedule to keep!_ ”

This last was directed at the group of White Fang gathering around him. They raised their weapons at Blake.

“You could have walked away, kitten,” said Torchwick. He raised his cane once more.

Sun dropped in from above, knocking Torchwick’s arm back down as he landed. “And you could have worn any other hat with that coat, but here we are.” He twirled his staff with a flourish, bring it up to rest on his shoulder in a ready position.

Torchwick fixed his hat and glowered at them. “We don’t have time to monkey around with them,” he snapped. “Get them!”

The White Fang rushed in, weapons bare. Blake and Sun rose to meet them, and it was on.

Blake knew how the White Fang attacked, and she was holding her own. As she expected, only a few of them had unlocked Auras, and those were weak at best. Leadership had always kept the best fighters close at hand or attached to special projects, and with the bulk of membership coming from disgruntled civilians, it was frequently the sheer weight of numbers that made a difference.

They swarmed her in twos and threes, hoping to overwhelm her with sheer force. But she was trained for much stronger opponents than these, and she turned their advantage against them. She dodged around blades, deflected gunfire, and darted in-between the attackers when they expected her to run away. In such close quarters, any attack they made against her had a good chance of hitting one of the others instead – even without her Semblance confusing the matters further.

Behind her, Sun’s opponents weren’t faring any better. His staff darted out in quick jabs, knocking weapons loose from their owners, and just when they’d adapted to that, he changed it up. Quick movements turned into sweeping twirls and lunges, more acrobatic than anything they’d come across.

Numbers were the problem, however, because just as Blake took down one, two more came in to take their place. Two more Bullheads streaked overhead, dropping off reinforcements. At this rate, they’d be swarmed.

Suddenly, one of her assailants rocketed upwards. His scream of sudden terror was the only thing left behind, as well as a pair of swirling white glyphs on the ground, which had springboarded him upwards.

“I had that one,” she grumbled as Weiss dropped down to take his place.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Weiss, catching a sword on her own blade and pushing it back with a burst of fire. “Listen, Blake, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Blake froze for half a moment. She couldn’t have possibly heard that right. “What?”

A hand was reaching for her face, claws extended. She leaned back as they slashed inches away from her eyes.

“And, well, more than yesterday,” Weiss continued. “I came looking for you because it’s my fault you left, and I didn’t realize how horrible I was being to you.” She spun the ammunition cylinder in her blade to bring a yellow shell to the front, and with a click of the trigger, sent a wave of sparks cascading in front of her.

Once the man-made lightning was in the air, it did what all lightning did – found the path of least resistance to ground itself. Half a dozen White Fang dropped their weapons as they found themselves suddenly closing the painful circuit.

“Are we really doing this right now?” Blake grunted. “We’re _kind of busy here._ ”

“Hey, she’s making an effort,” Sun shouted from across the way. “You two should take a moment to talk.”

He dropped down into a sudden front split, then used the momentum of his staff to send his current mob flying. “Y’know. When we’re not fighting for our lives. Okay, I see your point.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you just yet,” Weiss snapped.

“No, ma’am!”

 

* * *

 

Well, that was just great. The two faunus brats were trouble enough, but that new girl, that was going to be a problem.

Roman sighed as he raised his finger to his ear, activating the earpiece connected to his scroll. Bodies found at an SDC warehouse, that was the evening news. The heiress getting caught up in it? That would be a _media frenzy,_ and that was heat that he just didn’t need. Time to call it in.

An irritated voice came on the other end. _“We’re at the drop-off point. What’s the holdup?”_

“I took your pets out for a walk,” Roman said. “Turns out they’re a bit too popular with the local kids. Might not want to wait up, the cops will be all over us in a moment.”

_“We’ll deal with the cops. Handle it.”_

The line went dead.

“Wasn’t asking, but thanks,” said Roman to the empty air. He signaled the lieutenant near him. “Get the rest of it loaded and get ready to move.”

The lieutenant nodded and headed for the loading crew. He had to leap out of the way of a plume of fire sent by the Schnee, but she was aiming at another target altogether and wasn’t paying attention to him.

“And get the rest of the boys to circle back here!” Roman called after him.

 

* * *

 

Weiss sent another wave of ice across the ground, trapping the feet of those soldiers that didn’t have the wherewithal to jump. It was absolute _chaos,_ and the tide of enemies just seemed to keep pouring in.

“Hate to say it,” said Sun as he pushed into a defensive formation with the other girls, “but I think we’re surrounded.”

“We’re not surrounded,” Weiss insisted, tossing her hair petulantly. “This is a target-rich environment, nothing more.”

Even as she said this, however, another pair of Bullheads dropped into view, disgorging their complement of reinforcements. There was another _crack_ of an explosion, and her most recent icicle barrier shattered, sending shards flying everywhere and freeing the first group of White Fang.

“Okay, _now_ we’re surrounded,” Weiss admitted.

The White Fang drew closer, blades and guns at the ready. Weiss set her jaw and dared them to attack.

Thankfully, it didn’t get that far.

“Kiiiiiiiiiiiii-yah!”

A blood-curdling war cry resounded from above. A Yang-shaped meteor crashed down into the fray, the force of the impact rippling out from where the girl landed, fist first into a three-point crouch. The shockwave broke the ranks of their assailants, sending White Fang scattering to the winds.

“Hey, guys,” Yang said, straightening her stance and cocking her gauntlets with a sharp jab. “Mind if I drop in?”

“I literally just said that a minute ago,” Sun groused.

“Did you look this cool doing it?”

“...point, that one’s yours.”

“Yang…” Blake clenched her fists around her weapons. “Why?”

“You think Weiss is the only one who cared enough to come after you? Come _on,_ you know us better than that.”

“Us?”

Yang nodded her head behind her. “Ruby’s covering the exit, making sure none of these guys make a run for it.”

Sure enough, there was the tell-tale _crack_ of Ruby’s sniper rifle echoing through the shipyard.

“Now come on,” said Yang. “Let’s take these guys down and go home. We got you pizza.”

 

* * *

 

“Over there,” Penny said, pointing towards the north gate.

Ruby nodded and swung herself around, dragging Crescent Rose into firing position. It was much easier to keep the scythe anchored in the asphalt and pivot around that, instead of pulling it out and anchoring once more. One burst of Lightning Dust at range and the pair of escaping White Fang dropped to the ground, twitching in pain. Not enough to do serious damage, even if they didn’t have Auras to heal from the shot, but plenty of force to keep them quiet until the police came to round them up.

“They’ve discovered our position,” Penny warned.

Ruby glanced up. Sure enough, a squad of grunts were almost on them.

She grinned. “You know, you’re a pretty good spotter. We should do this again sometime.”

“I would be happy to,” said Penny. “That one has an electro-mace.”

“Got it.” Ruby swapped her Dust cartridges real quick and pushed off into the air. A quick burst of Gravity Dust and she dropped into the fray, sweeping her scythe wide to get some breathing room.

A woman with deer antlers and an electrified mace charged in. Ruby brought her scythe’s handle around to meet it. It was the most insulated part of the weapon, which would minimize any electric shock from the mace.

“Hey, I have a quick question for you,” said Ruby. She fired, the recoil forcing the scythe aside and letting the mace scrape up the barrel, locking it with the mace as she shifted her grip. The burst of electricity coursed through her muscles painfully, but not enough to make her drop it.

The deer lady glared at her. At least, Ruby thought she was glaring; it was hard to tell through the mask, but it seemed the most appropriate given the circumstances. “What?”

“Just a quick one! I promise!” Ruby used the new leverage to swing herself around the barrel and kick another grunt in the head. “What’s a lady henchman called?”

_“What?”_

“I’m trying to make sure I’m not being offensive! The last guy was a _guy_ so he didn’t really care, but I’m sure you do!”

The deer lady growled at her. “I am no _henchman,_ human. I am a _freedom fighter._ ”

Ruby yanked her scythe free and clocked her with it. “This is henching! This is _very definitely henching_ oh never mind you’re unconscious.”

She sighed and started searching for another opponent. She was _never_ going to find out at this rate.

 

* * *

 

With the new arrivals, the kids had cleared some breathing room. The cat took that moment to dart forward through the ranks and charge Roman once again, the monkey hot on her heels.

“What, there’s more of you now?” he complained as the cat swiped her blades at him. “Did daycare just let out or something?”

Roman kept up with her blows, matching blade for cane at every opportunity. When she darted around him, dropping a clone behind to boost her speed, he kept up and pressed the attack.

Her attacks were sloppy, fueled by rage and desperation. As an opening presented itself, the handle of his cane made it through her defenses and cracked her on the side of the head, sending her staggering backwards.

The monkey jumped in to take her place.

“Come _on,_ kid, what’s it going to take?” Roman growled, yanking Sun’s staff to the side with the hook of his cane.

“More than that,” the kid said, winking at him. He broke his staff into two pieces, which separated further into a pair of red and gold nunchucks. He twirled them expertly, forcing Roman onto the defensive, pushing him further and further back towards the waiting airships.

Roman started to get the rhythm of the attacks down and shifted to counter, but Monkey grinned and started juggling the nunchucks, slipping his fingers into the trigger guards and firing both barrels of the shotguns built into the grips. It was a deadly ballet of gunfire, one that Roman had to drop to the ground to evade. A hook under an ankle and the boy went down.

“This is why I’m top banana around here,” Roman gloated, as he shoved the tip of his cane in the kid’s face. “Say goodnight.”

The cane leapt from his fingers, knocked aside by an unknown force. A split second later, the high-pitched _crack_ of a sniper rifle bounced through the shipyard, belatedly announcing the presence of the supersonic bullet.

He glared upwards, searching for the person who fired that shot. There, on top of a stack of containers, was Little Red, staring purposefully down the barrel of her rifle.

“Hey, Red!” he called out, waving cheerfully. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

His earpiece buzzed. _“Extraction inbound. Be ready.”_

Well, that was that, he figured. The mess wasn’t getting any better, so it was time to let someone else clean it up. The Bullheads were as loaded as they were going to be.

“Alright, boys,” he called. “Time to pack it in. We’re needed elsewhere.”

 

* * *

 

Ruby narrowed her eyes. Across the way, Torchwick tipped his hat at her and bowed deeply, grabbing his weapon back in one smooth move.

Penny tapped her on the shoulder. She had followed her to the new perch, taking her role as spotter seriously. She was pretty great at it, too – Ruby definitely wanted to team up with her again, next chance she could.

“Yes, Penny? What is it?”

“One more ship inbound,” Penny said, pointing upwards.

A Bullhead was breaking through the cloud cover. This one wasn’t coming in low to drop off reinforcements, like the others, but was instead lined up perpendicular to Ruby’s position. The hatch was already open, and though she couldn’t see inside with the searchlights shining in her eyes, there was a darkened silhouette of a single person standing in the doorway.

A chill ran down Ruby’s spine. This was way too familiar.

The whistle of arrows soaring through the air struck her right in the reflexes and leapt out of the way, narrowly avoiding being pinned to the container. The scream of rapidly heated metal accompanied the strikes, and Ruby pushed off again and knocked Penny off the top of the shipping container before the arrows exploded.

“It’s her,” Ruby said, feeling a tingling sensation crawl up her spine as she glanced upwards.

Sure enough, the tell-tale orange glow of activated Dust embedded in the woman’s dress confirmed her fears. The woman who fought a fully-trained Huntress to a standstill.

“Ruby?” Penny’s voice was slightly muffled, and Ruby realized she was still on top of her, shielding her from the unknown but familiar assailant.

She got up and helped Penny to her feet. “We need to go.”

“Get to your sister and your friends,” Penny said, authoritatively. “I will hold her off.”

“What? You can’t, you’ll get hurt!”

“Don’t worry, Ruby.” Penny turned her head and smiled. She shrugged her shoulders just a bit, and the top flap of her backpack flipped open, revealing a series of folded blades, nestled into a small rack. “I’m combat ready!”

The blades sprang out of the backpack, propelled by unknown means, unfolding into single-bladed swords as they did so. Ruby could see the faint outline of extremely thin wires trailing from the handles, attaching them to the rack in the girl’s backpack. They floated above Penny’s head, matching the movements of her hands, which she held up in front of her face like a puppeteer.

Penny twitched her fingers, and a pair of blades shot forward, intercepting an overheated arrow in mid-air. The resulting explosion sent the swords flying back towards Penny, but she moved again and they reeled back into alignment with the rest.

Ruby gaped at her for a moment, watching the intricate dance as Penny sent more swords flying using those wires connected to her back. Four were dedicated to deflecting arrows and bursts of fire from above, while she sent another two out to trip up a pair of White Fang who were rushing her position. Another set wound around each other, knotting their wires about a foot from the handles, and with a sweep of her hand, sailed out in a spinning wheel of death towards another group of henchmen, knocking them to the ground and scattering their weapons. The pinwheel of certain death came back to Penny, and with a practiced movement, she untangled the wires and brought the swords back to ready.

Ruby had spent the entire day with her, and while she was friendly and cheerful and a delight to be around, it was time to declare the truth.

Penny was _cool._

“Ruby! Go!”

“Right, sorry!” Ruby took off running.

 

* * *

 

Every attack from above was countered by the swords on Penny’s strings. Unfortunately, the same held true in reverse; every time she launched an attack on the Bullhead, it was repelled by a burst of fire and wind. The archer held Penny’s attention, keeping her from attacking the rest of the White Fang as they escaped, but neither could they advance on Ruby and her friends.

Not while Penny held the line.

The airship kept descending all the while, landing where the criminal Torchwick was waiting. He and the White Fang were gathered in one spot, waiting for extraction. There were other tactics she could enable, but they were optimized for other scenarios. This was not a one-on-one battle, nor was she facing the training squad of Atlesian Knights she’d practiced against, or soulless Grimm. No, there was really only one action left she could take in this situation.

She drew upon her Aura and sent it along the wires to her blades. They reconfigured in front of her, the blades folding back to reveal their hidden Dust rifles. They were only loaded with one particular blend of Dust, which would never achieve the type of battlefield versatility that Weiss and Ruby demonstrated, but she didn’t mind. She only ever needed the one blend.

_Aura Transmission at maximum. Dynotherms connected. Particle cannon… online._

The blades spun around each other, linking their Dust together. They achieved synergy, pooling the activated Dust together at the central point, a vortex of power that continued to charge. She could feel it crackling around her, ionizing the air.

When they reached critical mass, she released her hold, and the particle cannon fired. Plumes of green energy lanced out, rushing towards the White Fang. One beam struck a circling airship, searing through the armor and slicing it clean in half. The two parts crashed down onto the asphalt, the edges of the metal glowing red-hot.

The discharge reached the rest of the group, but that was when something strange happened. It wasn’t until later, when she was able to review the security logs and compare it to her memory, that she saw what happened.

The woman in the landing Bullhead discharged her own blast, drawing upon the Dust in her clothing and a crystal she’d pulled from the cargo bay, meeting Penny’s fire with her own. The two opposing forces detonated, obscuring the rest of the field from view.

When the smoke settled, the rest of the airships were already leaving. Torchwick and the woman had escaped, as had at least half of the White Fang.

Penny’s Aura was drained, and she could already feel the effects. She reeled her swords back into their ports in her backpack and closed it up.

She glanced at her friends. They were tying up the remaining White Fang for the police, who were even now arriving on-scene.

Well. This had certainly been an exciting day.

 

* * *

 

It was later. Police reports had happened.

The rest of the girls had an easier time, needing only to provide their student IDs and make their statements. There was a bit of an issue with Sun, since Haven didn’t have the same kind of pull with the Vale PD that Beacon did, but that still paled in comparison to what Weiss had to do.

It was a Schnee location, and despite the fact that she was here as a Huntress, she was still a very public face of the company. She gave her statement and signed off on the charges against those White Fang under arrest, but it still was an hour until she was able to hand off to the regional representative from the Vale SDC branch.

They’d waited for her. Ruby, Blake, and Yang. Technically, they weren’t supposed to leave the scene until the detectives were finished, but nobody would have chased after them if they’d gone back to Beacon.

(Penny was already gone. A car had come by for her and Penny had made her goodbyes, thanking them again for the day out. Ruby made sure to exchange numbers with her before she left.)

“This is why my father has three different lawyers on speed-dial,” Weiss grumbled as she approached the pile of crates and blankets.

Ruby and Yang glanced at each other, then at Blake, who had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, sheltering her from the wind and the world at large.

_(talk to blake. tell her what you told me.)_

Well. It was now or never.

“Blake, I—”

“I’m sorry I ran,” Blake interrupted. “I didn’t mean to drag all of you into this, and I just… I didn’t mean to…”

Weiss glanced at the others for support. Yang stared back, giving her nothing. Ruby tilted her head. _Go on, it’s okay._

“You didn’t drag us into anything,” Weiss began.

Blake glanced up, her amber eyes wary and fearful. Her ears were folded back, pressed down as far against her head as they could.

Without the bow there, it was hard to imagine her any other way. Weiss couldn’t believe she didn’t see it before, the way her hair pressed close against the side of her head, obscuring the place where human ears would have been.

Weiss realized, far too late, that it didn’t matter. This was Blake. This is who she’d always been.

“You didn’t drag us into _anything,_ ” Weiss repeated, more confidently this time. “You ran because I was being awful, and I pushed you away. This was _my fault,_ not yours.”

Yang snorted. “Trust a Schnee to even make an apology feel like she’s dressing you down.”

“This is who I am, Xiao Long,” Weiss snapped. “I don’t back down, not from a fight, and not from fixing what I… from fixing my own mistakes. And this was _my_ mistake, not Blake’s.”

Weiss took a deep breath. “Do you know what I did after you left? I went out for a walk, and I checked some of the places where I thought you might be around the school. Velvet said that it was hard for you to be put in a team with me, and after what I did, I don’t blame you at all. I wouldn’t want to be on a team with me if I was a faunus, either.”

Blake sniffled. “You talked to Velvet?”

“I thought you might be at her place,” Weiss said. “So, here’s the thing. You were right. I’ve been sheltered from… from quite a few things, growing up, and I’ve picked up a lot of bad ideas about faunus. I didn’t know it then, but I do know it now, and the rest of you have seen it all this time so it’s clearly a lot worse than I thought. I’m going to do my best, with my...”

“Social missteps and confusion?” Blake offered.

“My _ostentatious blundering,_ ” Weiss finished. She offered a weak smile. “You deserve a team that you feel safe around, and I haven’t been holding up my end.”

She took another deep breath. “Blake Belladonna, I’m truly sorry for what I said to you.”

“Hey, how’d you find her, anyway?” Ruby asked.

“I went to the local SDC office and asked about the last freighter from Atlas,” said Weiss. “I thought that if I could see for myself that I was wrong about what I said about the White Fang, I could show that to you guys and prove that I was making an effort.”

Blake was silent for a moment. “I was wrong about the White Fang,” she said eventually. “That’s why I left them in the first place. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before.”

“It’s alright,” said Ruby. “You don’t have to say anything until you’re ready.”

“No, I should,” Blake insisted. “I want to, just… later, okay?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” said Yang.

They sat in companionable silence. It was good being back together. Just the four of them.

“This is nice,” said Sun.

Weiss glanced over. The boy was leaning against a crate, eating an apple. Weiss didn’t know where he had gotten the apple, if it was in his pocket the entire fight, or if he had left to get one.

“I’m still upset with you,” she said.

“I know.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a familiar box. “Here, this belongs to you.”

She grabbed it and looked inside. The cufflinks were there, nestled in the plush fabric of their display. Not a single stone was out of place. “You—why?”

“You’re pretty okay, Schnee,” Sun said. “And I shouldn’t have taken that from you. So there you go.”

Blake reached out of her blankets and elbowed him in the side.

“Oh, and I owe you a favor sometime. That’ll make us even, alright? No harm, no foul.”

Weiss stared him down. “You owe me a lot more than that,” she growled.

“Sure, sure.” Sun held up his hands defensively. “We’ll worry about the how much and all that when you’re ready to collect.”

Weiss huffed in indignation, but she returned her focus to the box in front of her. Klein’s present was safe. Her team was back together. Blake was talking to her again, and while Weiss had a lot more work to do to make it up to her, it wasn’t the mountain of impossibility that she’d feared it was.

Maybe, just maybe, things were going to be alright.

 

* * *

 

“I gotta say, those kids are just getting _weirder,_ ” Roman said as they entered the warehouse.

Despite the interference, they’d still made off with enough Dust to finish Phase One, which was a relief. There was only so much Dust they could fleece off a Kingdom before the effort started being more trouble than it was worth. What with the events of the last couple hours, it might have already reached that point.

“You were sloppy.” Cinder hopped off the airship and stalked to her corner, where Emerald and Mercury were waiting for her. “This whole thing could have fallen apart while you were playing with those girls.”

“Hey, I’d like to remind you that you hired me specifically because I could outsmart a Huntsman.” Roman gestured to the piles of Dust crates that filled the entire warehouse. “And what do I have to show for it? Practically our own Schnee mine, right here. You’re welcome.”

Cinder waved him away and started focusing on her flames. They were getting stronger, more reliable. She hadn’t flickered out once, even when that weird girl with the laser swords did that… _whatever_ thing she did.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. They were done with Dust. It was time to move onto Phase Two.

“Neo! What’ve you got for me?”

His second in command, longtime ally, and quite possibly best friend hopped down from her perch, brandishing a scroll. She held it up for his perusal.

“Good, good. Think it’ll pass muster?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. Then, with a sharp breath, she _changed._

The thing about Neo’s illusions, they were physical. You could reach out and touch them. So when she changed, it wasn’t just a hologram. The cascade of pink light reformed around her, making her clothes sharper, more rigidly cut. Her jacket and pants turned into a more military-cut uniform, black and white with silver accents. Her hair shifted from its usual pink and brown to a dark, almost black, curls cascading down her back.

She opened green eyes and glanced up at him, now matching the Haven student ID in her hand.

Roman smiled. They wanted a heist, and he’d happily provide. He was _good_ at heists. It was risky, what they wanted him to do, but he knew that the higher the risk, the better the reward.

And really, everything was easier when you had a man on the inside.

 

* * *

**CCT Movie Database  
_Dust in the Wind_**

A Huntress, determined to protect her hometown. A bandit prince, ordered to destroy it. On the eve of war, two unlikely heroes from opposite sides find a common ground, when the ravages of rampaging Grimm threaten everything they love. But can they reconcile their feelings for each other and turn the tide of battle? Can they stop the wheels that have already been put into motion? Or will they risk it all and lose everything?

_– CMDb Plot Synopsis_

**Genres: Drama, Romance**

**Rating: 7/10**

**Trivia:** The first motion picture broadcast in Mistral, _Dust in the Wind_ remains a timeless classic. In recent years, however, theaters have been putting disclaimers before showings, as the prejudices of Pre-War Mistral have not aged well. Even still, theaters do still air it as it was originally shown, unedited and in its entirety, because to pretend that the attitudes of the past never happened at all would be far more damaging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, faunus don't have four ears. That would be silly.


	12. Initiative

The Headmaster of Beacon Academy was a position with certain privileges. He had a seat on the Council, which guaranteed him a vote on governmental affairs that required a quorum. His personal office was built at the top of Beacon’s CCT tower, which was in many respects the best view in the entire Kingdom. He also had a standing invitation to guest on _Ojo and Woozy’s Morning Buzz_ – “Vale’s Number 1 CCT Radio Call-In Show, home of the Honeycomb Hunt Grand Prize Game! Weekday Mornings on Channel Seven!”

Headmaster Ozpin’s official jurisdiction was over the nation’s Huntsmen, the Academy, and the connecting parts of the Emerald Forest to the south. His authority did not officially extend further into the Kingdom than that.

Of course, things get a little fuzzy sometimes. Beacon’s graduates didn’t always stay in the Kingdom, but the ones who did often worked with the Vale Police Department, lending their skills and their training for crimes along the border. Bandits and criminals sometimes had unlocked Auras, and every few years someone tries to sneak a few Grimm in past the gates to wreak havoc. More than a few detectives got their start from the feeder programs in the nearby combat schools, as well, and the Academy always had a few mission slots open for student internships.

Strictly speaking, the Headmaster had no business demanding the use of an interrogation room and a waiting room down the hall. The Captain would cheerfully throw him out, and be justified in doing so. Especially on a night like tonight, when the warehouse district was still on fire and the holding cells were full of White Fang terrorists, all waiting to be processed and charged.

But when Ozpin came in and _asked nicely,_ well. There were plenty of people who would happily look the other way. The wheels of the city turn both ways, after all.

 

* * *

 

The waiting room that Ozpin had booked turned out to be the one set aside for children. As such, it was overly-decorated and filled with as many toys, books, and games that the department could get its hands on. Considering most of the reasons children needed to be in a police station, distractions were extremely important. They were also extremely disturbing in the juxtaposition.

Blake shuddered as she opened the door and stepped inside. That much neon and pastel overloaded her senses.

Three concerned faces turned to meet her.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’m not expelled. Not yet, at least.”

She turned towards her leader, who was seated at a table at least three sizes too small for her. Half a puzzle sat forgotten on the surface, the remaining pieces scattered around Ruby’s elbows. “He wants to talk to you now,” Blake said.

“Great!” Ruby chirped. Her voice cracked with the effort of forced cheer. “That’s great! Gonna talk to the Headmaster now, after failing a mission and almost losing half my team. That’s _swell._ ”

She untangled herself from the tiny table and massaged her elbows. “Weiss, if I don’t come back, finish this for me, alright?”

“What, the puzzle?”

“Yes! It’s very important.” She arched her back, stretching her muscles and wincing briefly at the series of pops along her spine. After taking a moment to compose herself, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

“So what’d he say?” asked Yang. She was sprawled sideways on the couch, one leg draped over the side, her hair falling in her face.

“Not much.” Blake ran her fingers through her hair. “He wanted to make sure I was okay, and then he asked me what I knew about the White Fang.”

Yang sat up. “You don’t think...?”

Blake hesitated. “I don’t know. I didn’t say anything, but it was like he already knew. And… he asked about my bow.”

Weiss glanced quickly between the two of them. “I didn’t tell him! I swear I didn’t!”

“I believe you,” said Blake. And she did. The Headmaster brought up her bow and asked her, simply, why she wore it. There was no surprise, no guilt, no accusation. Just a simple question.

Ozpin had pushed, but he hadn’t tried to force the issue. Especially when she’d told him why.

“I think he’s known for a while,” she continued. “He had my file there with him, probably my application was in there. I didn’t use a false name, I didn’t falsify any transcripts. I think he just knew.”

Yang shrugged. “If he’s known for a while, then there isn’t anything new, is there?”

“Just the police report,” Blake confirmed. “And then we should be good to go.”

“After he’s done with Ruby,” said Yang.

 

* * *

 

If someone had asked Ruby not that long ago which one of Taiyang Xiao Long’s daughters would spend an above-average length of time in a police station, she’d have laughed. Yang was the one who snuck out and got into bar fights, doing whatever it was she did while looking for any possible clues as to where her mother had gone.

And yet here she was, seated in an interrogation room across from one of the most important people in the entire Kingdom, for the _second time_ in six months.

It was even for the same reason. She’d gone out in the evening and picked a fight with the city’s most notorious criminal and several of his hired thugs.

Ruby Rose was fifteen years old and she already had an _arch-nemesis._ It would be ridiculously cool if it wasn’t so scary.

...it was still pretty cool.

That didn’t change the fact that Professor Ozpin was staring at her over the rims of his glasses, patiently waiting for her to speak. It was unsettling how calm he was in the face of everything, and he had every right to be furious.

“So,” Ruby said, reaching up to scratch the back of her head. She had nothing much else to do with her hands, and sitting still for too long always made her restless and fidgety. “How’s _your_ night going?”

Ozpin held her gaze for a hair longer than was comfortable. Ruby was beginning to think he was _really_ mad, that he was trying to intimidate her into confessing something. She wasn’t entirely certain what he’d want her to confess _to;_ she’d been more than forthright about everything in her police report.

Then, he laughed, and the tension was gone.

“Oh, no, Miss Rose, my evening has been _far_ less interesting than yours. Holding off Roman Torchwick and a small platoon of White Fang, that must have been challenging.”

“It’s not like I went looking for him,” Ruby grumbled defensively. “We were looking for Blake, and technically also Weiss even though she checked in with us, and then _boom,_ big explosion and bad guys. What was I supposed to do?”

Ozpin flipped open one of the manila folders that rested on the table in front of him. “I meant what I said before,” he said, shuffling the pages inside. “You’re not in trouble.”

The picture on top was of her, standing in front of the shattered window of a Dust shop. Security cam footage from the first time she went up against Torchwick.

“Why not?”

He glanced back up at her. She got the feeling he was not expecting that question. “I’m sorry?”

She balled her hands into fists and pressed them into her lap. “Professor Ozpin, why did you make me a team leader?”

Ozpin closed the folder and clasped his hands on top of it, steepling his fingers thoughtfully. “Ah, I see. You want to know if I made a mistake.”

“I lost control of my team, almost abandoned the mission in progress, and had to spend all weekend trying to gather everyone up after everything fell apart.” Ruby shook her head. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to lead them if I can’t even keep them together.”

With Ozpin’s hands in front of his face like that, she couldn’t exactly tell, but she was pretty sure that he was smiling. A stab of anger coursed through her brain; was he _laughing_ at her failure?

“Let me just ask you this. Why are you asking this now, instead of when it happened? You reported in immediately after returning to Beacon last night, you could have spoken to me about it then.”

“I didn’t have time to worry about it then,” Ruby said, a bit more heatedly than she’d expected. “My team was in trouble.”

Ozpin laid his hands down on the table directly. “You put your own personal discomfort aside when a crisis revealed itself. That’s not failure, Miss Rose. That’s _leadership._ ”

Ruby’s anger evaporated, replaced with sheer confusion. “It—what? But the fight, and Blake ran away...”

“You cannot control the feelings of a group of teenagers in close proximity,” said Ozpin. “I’ve run this school for a long time, and that is quite possibly the one thing that has never changed. Tensions will flare, people will argue, and feelings will get hurt. If you take one lesson away from this, Miss Rose, let it be that: Conflicts can never truly be avoided.”

Ruby felt herself nodding along. That… made a scary amount of sense. “So you’re saying you don’t think that you made a mistake.”

“I’ve made a great many mistakes in my lifetime. Probably more than any person alive.” Ozpin’s voice sounded a bit strange, and his eyes were unfocused, not looking at Ruby directly anymore.

He shook his head and met her gaze once more. “But no, I don’t think that choosing you to lead your team was one of them. And I don’t think you do, either.”

“I hope not,” said Ruby.

“Well, then.” Ozpin stood up from the table and gestured towards the door. “There’s only one way to find out.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Twelve  
** **Initiative**

* * *

 

The next few days were just as stressful as the weekend. Although, Ruby mused, it was for completely different reasons.

Weiss and Blake were talking again, and that was good! After a day or so of Weiss over explaining her actions and asking if Blake was alright about once an hour, the two reached an equilibrium that was _almost_ about where they’d been before The Fight.

For her part, Blake had started talking about her past. It was hard, and she could only handle a bit at a time before she felt too uncomfortable to continue, but Ruby could tell that Blake was making an effort. She’d even shown them a picture of her parents!

(Ruby had responded with a _perfectly normal amount_ of enthusiasm for seeing Blake’s family for the first time and had only commented on the resemblance _once,_ but that had been the end of _that_ conversation for the day.)

Unfortunately, although the tensions abated between team RWBY, they didn’t go away entirely. Weiss was still stepping on eggshells around not just Blake, but Ruby and Yang as well. Blake was even more reclusive than she was before, coming around only to go to classes and share meals, before retreating back to her bunk with a book. Yang… well, Yang tended to deal with her problems more directly than the others, so she was keeping a closer eye on Blake and generally avoiding conversations with Weiss if she could get away with it.

Even Ruby was feeling the drain. Midterms ate up a lot of her focus, and when she got back to the room, everyone was either asleep or aggressively keeping to themselves.

She tried suggesting group activities, like movies, or dinners out, or video games. Usually only Yang offered to go with her, which defeated the purpose of group activities, and it all fell apart.

It was… frustrating. And the major thing was, she understood everyone’s feelings. Everyone was hurt and upset after the fight, and if they weren’t thinking about that, they were still on edge after the battle at the docks. Ruby certainly was; she kept expecting to turn a corner to see red hair and a bowler hat, or a darkened silhouette covered in bright orange glyphs burning as bright as an open flame.

More than just a group activity, the girls needed to _act._ They needed to address their pent-up aggression and anxiety, to strike out against mindless enemies in a challenging but safe environment. Sparring wasn’t the answer; it was a way to release tensions against each other, but she needed something that focused on cooperation and communication.

She flipped through her scroll, an idea forming in her head. There _was_ something that would do just that.

There. That was the contact she needed. Her scroll connected to the other end quickly.

“Hey, Jaune! I need a favor from you.” Ruby’s brain whirled with possibilities; this was going to be absolutely _perfect._ “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

Tomorrow was the best idea. The last midterm was in the morning, and they’d have some time to unwind after lunch before she grabbed them all.

“Perfect,” she said, upon hearing Jaune’s confirmation. “Meet us in the library after dinner. Bring your dice.”

 

* * *

 

Weiss checked her messages after the final midterm exam. Her scroll had pinged during Grimm Studies, earning her a sigh from Professor Port and an extra attempt at capturing a Beowolf Alpha without killing it. That ping had been eating away at her attention for the entire rest of class, but somehow she made it through without sacrificing focus on the rest of the exam.

The rest of her midterms were more or less what she was expecting. Dr. Oobleck assigned an essay on the lead-up to the Great War, which Weiss finished with time to spare. Most of the other classes had a similar blend between written and practical exams, depending on the class in question.

Professor Goodwitch, for example, dueled each student individually, rating them on how long they were able to last in combat against a fully-trained Huntress. Weiss had done fairly well, if she did say so herself; a full minute in the ring, although she burned almost all the Dust in her weapon dodging and making counter-attacks.

(The only person to fight Goodwitch to a draw was Pyrrha. That was probably the highlight of the semester.)

But that was the morning. Testing was over with, and the rest of the day was hers. She loaded up her inbox over lunch.

One message. _One._ Flagged as urgent because it came directly from Father’s office. Though not from her father directly, of course. He had a business to run, and there were people for that sort of thing.

 

 

> _Ms. Schnee,_
> 
> _Your father will be out of town on a business trip over the next week, and will be taking young Master Schnee and the household staff with him. As such, he has instructed me to inform you that you are to remain at Beacon over the break, to prepare for classes to resume. Beacon Academy, much like Atlas Academy, has multiple programs for students that require holiday lodgings, and your account has been loaded to provide the best care. He looks forward to receiving your semester grades at the end of term._
> 
> _On another note, your request of additional Dust supplies has been approved. Attached is the shipping log for the amounts and types you have requested, as well as the associated tracking numbers. I understand that you are partially to thank for the resolution of our Vale shipping delays, and your father passes along his gratitude as well._
> 
> _The SDC wishes you luck in your continued studies, and we look forward to your return at the end of the school year._
> 
> _Cerise Verglacé, Administrative Assistant  
>  _ _Office of the Chief Executive Officer  
>  Schnee Dust Company_
> 
> _P.S.: Klein and I added a little something to your shipment. We’re pulling for you, sweetheart. Hope to see you for the new year!_

 

Well. That was it, then. One cursory mention of her grades, and a second-hand dismissal.

Weiss sighed. She wasn’t entirely certain what she had been expecting. Father was never one for overly demonstrative displays of affection, and at least he acknowledged that Beacon was as safe a place for his heir to stay as Atlas.

“Who’s that from?” Yang asked, peeking over her shoulder.

Weiss snapped her scroll shut pointedly. “That was a letter from home,” she said, letting a bit of displeasure creep into her voice. Not too much; she’d been working on being a better teammate and a better friend, but there were _boundaries._ “My father was congratulating me on my midterm grades.”

“We haven’t gotten our grades yet,” Yang pointed out, completely unhelpfully.

“No, not yet,” Weiss admitted. She rallied spectacularly. “He was congratulating me in advance, of course. After all, there is no doubt whatsoever that I would place highest in the class.”

“Alright, fine, you don’t want to talk about it. Consider it dropped.”

Ruby poked her head into the hallway. “Consider what dropped?”

“Nothing,” Weiss grumbled, at the same time that Yang said “Letter from home.”

“Oooh, that’s always exciting,” said Ruby. “That reminds me, Dad messaged me about the harvest festival, he wants us to help out with the town square.”

Yang groaned. “What did he _actually_ say?”

“He said that he had everything handled and that he was looking forward to our reactions to what he had planned.”

“Oh gods, he does this _every year,_ and then he overplans and nothing ends up getting done.” Yang shook her head. “He’s going to throw his back out again.”

“Probably.”

“You want to distract him while I finish the stage?”

Ruby frowned in thought. “No, he’s caught onto that one. We’ll need to think of something different this year.”

Weiss raised an eyebrow. “I still don’t understand why you go to such lengths to do your father’s work behind his back.”

“He does this _every year,_ ” Yang repeated, as if that explained anything.

“Dad appreciates the help, but he still tries to do everything himself,” Ruby clarified. “So the last couple years, we’ve made a point to share the workload between the four of us.”

“Four?”

“Dad, me, Yang, and Zwei.”

Weiss blinked. “Your dog helps?”

“He’s great at passing tools when we need them,” said Yang.

Ruby nodded. “He’s not allowed to put tables together after what happened last time.”

“Sure, but _you_ say no to that face.”

_“He knows what he did.”_

Weiss forced herself not to dwell the sisterly bantering. She didn’t need to try very hard; it was becoming second nature these days, really. Even when it left her with more questions than she’d had at the beginning.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Ruby chirped, in a tone of voice that did not indicate that she had forgotten at all, but was merely waiting for the right moment. “I scheduled us all for a Team Building Exercise after dinner tonight.”

“I’m busy tonight,” floated Blake’s voice into the hallway through the open door.

“No you’re not, I checked.” Ruby grinned. “None of us had anything planned, and now we do, so there’s no excuse.”

“Pass,” said Blake, in the same disinterested tone.

Weiss nodded. “I’d rather focus on what my plans are for the break, myself. It’s going to take some planning—”

“Nope.”

Oh, no.

Ruby’s grin somehow got wider. “Hey, so you know how I haven’t really put my foot down on anything as team leader yet?”

Weiss felt a knot in her stomach. This wasn’t going to be easy, it sounded like.

Even Yang seemed surprised. “I thought you were intentionally being hands-off to let trust come naturally,” she said.

“That hasn’t worked out so great,” said Ruby. “So I’m doing something new. Morale is the lowest it’s been since the first day of school, and this is the perfect opportunity to fix that. We need to work hard at our teamwork, and this is the perfect time to do it.”

Weiss and Yang exchanged glances. Yang was _smiling,_ exhibiting a confidence that Weiss certainly did not share.

“So, yes. This is going to be _mandatory,_ ” Ruby continued. “Just give it a chance, alright? It’ll be fun, and Jaune’s been pestering me to do this for a while so this is a good opportunity to kill two Nevermore with one bullet.”

“Wait,” Weiss interrupted. “What do you mean, _Jaune?_ I thought you said this was a team-building exercise.”

“It is! And he’s going to be helping.” Ruby thrust her hands in the pockets of her skirt and rocked forwards on her feet. “So be nice and meet us in the library after dinner. Bring your scrolls and some notebooks.”

With that, she darted off down the hallway, disappearing in a red blur.

 

* * *

 

Beacon Tower was a central fixture on campus. One of the oldest buildings in the Kingdom, it was built out of the former palace’s Emerald Tower, and was frequently still referred to as such.

When Atlas built the Cross Continental Transmit System across the Four Kingdoms of Remnant, the Emerald Tower was refit with the latest technology. Entire floors were demolished to make room for the CCT infrastructure, the former dungeons and war rooms of the palace gutted and turned into server space, Dust processing and storage, and user terminals. Over time, the tower became the capital city’s primary communications hub.

The outside of the tower, however, was more or less untouched. And aside from the installation of elevators and other amenities, so too was the pinnacle. The Emerald Tower of Vale had been built to be not only a clock tower, easily seen from almost anywhere in the original parts of the city, but also a lighthouse for incoming ships from sea and air. The eight verdant spheres in the clockwork shone brilliantly, giving the palace its name, and ensuring all that the warm green light would be seen by all.

To the subjects of the King, and the citizens of Vale, the light was comforting. It was a beacon of hope and a guiding light, so that all may find their way home safely, even in the darkest of nights.

To the enemies of Vale, it was a warning. Wherever the light touched was under the King’s watch, his eyes upon any that would trespass and threaten the Kingdom.

These days, of course, it served as the Headmaster’s office. With the warm green glow from above and the plate glass walls of the clock faces around the tower, it was also the best view in the city, bar none.

It was impressive, awe-inspiring, and not the least bit terrifying.

Amber had been to Ozpin’s office only a few times before. Every time was a nerve-wracking experience. This time was no exception.

The office itself was sparse. A few chairs against the wall was the only allowance for comfort in the room, aside from the Headmaster’s desk itself, all the way across from the elevator, facing inward towards the room with the occupant’s back against the clock face. The floor was inlaid with brushed copper and steel, arranged in concentric circles from the center of the room. The primary area of the office spanned almost the entire floor of the tower, aside from a second split level above the elevator in a loft overlooking the rest of the office. Ozpin’s conference table was up on that secondary level.

It was almost underwhelming, knowing the man himself who occupied the space… until you looked up, into the inner workings of the clock tower itself. There was no barrier between the office and the gears, which ticked merrily along. Some sort of Dust-enhanced soundproofing was in place, however, as despite the open air between the office and the enormous clockwork, the ambient noise was no louder than a well-kept grandfather clock.

Ozpin was seated at his desk, typing something. He glanced up when Amber exited the elevator, nodded in greeting, and returned to his work.

He was not alone. The assistant headmistress was with him, watching Amber closely as she approached.

Amber liked Glynda, but she was decidedly hard to read. Her stern demeanor served her well when dealing with unruly students, but the woman never seemed to be able to turn it off. Amber always felt like she was in trouble when Glynda was around.

“Thank you for coming,” said Ozpin when she finally stood in front of the massive wrought-iron desk.

Amber nodded and waited for him to continue. The holographic display on his desk caught her eye, and she leaned in closer to see what it was he was working on, out of idle curiosity more than anything else.

An extremely familiar face stared back at her, flipped in perspective from the display. Ozpin was writing a message to Qrow Branwen.

The anxiety was back in full force. The one thing she could say for certain about Ozpin is that nothing around him was coincidence.

“Has something happened?” she asked, deciding to spur the conversation forward herself.

“Something like that,” said Ozpin. “How well do you remember your assailants?”

_Far too well. I see them every time I close my eyes._

Out loud, she said, “They’re hard to forget.” She raised a hand and gestured towards the necrotized scar on her face.

“Qrow says he’s told you they’re in the city. Security footage matched one of them back in early spring.” Ozpin tapped a button and an image projected into the air between them.

Two figures on a rooftop, the smaller of whom she now recognized as one of her student bodyguards. A third framed in the hold of a Bullhead, her features obscured by the glare of the spotlights against the camera, but the tell-tale glow of her dress and the blazing bow she held was instantly identifiable.

This was the picture that Qrow showed her a few months back.

“Since then,” Ozpin continued, “there has been more evidence of their foothold in this Kingdom.”

The display changed again. This picture was also security camera footage, but the scenery was different. No longer the rooftops of the busy streets in the center of town, the picture showed a battle in progress at the warehouses down by the freight docks. Hooded figures locked in combat with six young Huntsmen. Four of them she knew.

At the far end of the docks, another Bullhead with an open cargo bay. Standing inside, with her glowing dress and blazing bow…

Amber forced her fists to unclench. “That’s her.”

Another tap. Qrow’s face came back, along with a short message. Ozpin flipped the display so that she could read it without having to turn it backwards in her head.

  **The queen has pawns.**

“They’re getting bolder. Moving in the open. Whatever their plans are, they’re accelerating them.”

Ozpin stood up from his desk and moved to stare out the window. Amber found herself moving unconsciously to follow.

The view really _was_ phenomenal. On a clear day, she surmised she could see practically all the way to Mistral.

“You want me to make a choice,” she said. It was not a question.

“I don’t want you to have to,” Ozpin admitted. “But I’m afraid that might soon be out of our hands. The Arbiter remains dormant, and I cannot let them be the ones to change it.”

“They’re already coming for you,” Glynda added. “It’s not a matter of _if_ now, only _when._ ”

Amber let out a single derisive laugh. “I can’t go into hiding. You know that.”

“There may be no other choice—”

_“Don’t you talk to me about choice.”_

The papers on Ozpin’s desk scattered in the sudden wind. Amber took a moment to compose herself.

“Don’t,” she said, quieter, but no less forceful. “I have work to do. If not here, then elsewhere. That’s my calling. If you deny me that, you may as well lock me in a glass cage in the basement.”

Ozpin raised his hand to forestall any further outburst. “I can no more deny you your calling than I can turn back time. But you know as well as I do that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants. We need to have options. And for that to happen…”

He left it trailing.

“...you need me to make a choice,” Amber said. “You’re saying we have to move forward with this.”

“I’m saying that we need to be prepared.”

Amber sighed and looked upwards into the guts of the clock tower, into the spinning wheels and orbiting spheres. The gears needed to turn. Some might control the hands on the face of the clock, some might throttle the speed to make sure nothing moved too slow or too fast, but they were all gears in the machinery. Essential for their part in keeping the clockwork moving, but not nearly important as the sum of their parts. The gears couldn’t change what they were meant for, nor how they did their duty.

That was how she felt, right then. Part of a plan, with a crucial role, but completely shackled to it nonetheless.

But this time they were asking her to shackle someone else. What was worse is that she didn’t disagree with them.

“I’ll work it out,” she said. “Just give me more time with them, okay?”

“You’ll have all the time we can afford,” said Ozpin.

She shook her head. “It won’t be enough, will it?”

Ozpin shifted his feet, and suddenly he seemed a lot older than the forty-something man she saw before her. Something in his eyes, in the way he carried himself…

“It never is.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner came and went, and the girls made their way to the library.

Yang watched her sister lead the way, Blake and Weiss following close behind. Despite trying to find a way out of whatever Ruby had planned, they were clearly intrigued.

For her part, Yang was only slightly apprehensive. Ruby had spent the entire semester only making a token effort as team leader. Being younger than the other three, the prospect had to be terrifying – initial arguments with the heiress notwithstanding. But when push came to shove, she usually found a way to push through and take charge, and that was what she was doing now.

Yang was proud of her sister. That had been and would always be the case. She was just glad that she didn’t have to drag the other two behind her.

Jaune was waiting for them at one of the larger tables. He’d seated himself at the head of it, spreading out a series of textbooks and sheets of paper across a wide area, as far as he could easily reach.

“Hey, guys!” he called out, waving at them as they approached.

“Hey, Jaune,” Ruby replied cheerfully. “Thanks for doing this on such short notice.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been holding onto this game for months. It’s a different one than what I usually run for the others.” He reached into his bag and pulled out five small cloth pouches, tied off at the top like old-fashioned money pouches. Whatever was inside them clattered when he dropped them on the table.

“Oh, no,” Weiss muttered. “Ruby, you _didn’t._ ”

“I did!” Ruby chirped. “And so will you. Because this is a mandatory team event.”

“Ruby—”

“Man~da~tory~!”

Yang reached over and selected one of the cloth bags. She emptied it out in front of her. Orange dice scattered across the table, each with a different shape with different sets of numbers engraved on the faces. “What kind of game do you have here, Snoozles?”

Jaune gestured to the books and papers spread over the table. “This is Grimm & Garrisons, it’s a collaborative storytelling game. Since Ruby said you guys have never played before, I’ve got some half-filled-in character sheets I can send to your scrolls. Just pick them off this list right here, and then you can fill in the rest…”

The next half hour was spent talking over characters, rules, and preparing the table for play. It took a little bit of explanation, but before long, they were set up and ready to go.

Then Jaune began to set the stage. It was halting, awkward, as he stumbled over a few of his words, but after a while he found a rhythm, and Yang found herself carried away by the description.

She was drifting, in the theater of her mind, as she not only paid attention to the places that Jaune was describing, but imagining herself as the character he’d helped her create, and how she fit into it…

_She was not Yang. Yang Xiao Long did not exist in this game. She could hear the wind through the desert bluffs, smell the sun-baked dirt and the sweat of the animals she led into town. She could feel them as she pulled gently on their reins..._

 

* * *

 

The sun was shining in the town of White Falls. It was a hot morning, but Goldie was prepared for it. The wide brim of her hat kept the glare out of her eyes, and while the heavy clothes she wore were warm, they kept the sun off as much skin as possible.

Her canteen was running dry; she’d drank most of it on the way into town from her ranch, but she’d be able to refill it before she left.

It was here that she’d come, to sell some of her best cattle. But little did she know that it was here that adventure was waiting for her...

 

* * *

**CCTNet Reviews  
** _Grimm & Garrisons, Third Edition_

Regardless of whenever you started playing, G&G remains one of the titans of the tabletop industry. In this new installment, the creative team behind Remnant’s leading gaming powerhouse has shown us yet again exactly why.

Under the playtesting name of G&G Continued, the Third Edition pushed forward to release after multiple strong showings at conventions. With a streamlined ruleset, G&G distanced itself from the unpopular direction that the previous edition had taken, while keeping the customization that players worldwide had come to love and expect.

The game has become completely modular, with the multiple parts of its core character classes, which have been balanced to be easily swapped and adapted to the players’ desire. Class abilities are far more than merely aesthetically different from each other. If you created a swashbuckling Pirate, for example, your core mechanic would be much different than that of a spell-casting Dust Sorcerer.

The complexity may be a bit much for the casual player, but this edition does keep that in mind, and has introduced an advantage mechanic for the Game Master, which greatly speeds the arbitration of conflict. It’s incredibly easy to just pick up and play with a minimum of setup.

While at publishing, only the core rulebooks were available, the G&G team has promised to put out monthly adventure content, as well as their famously maintained boards of custom player-made content for sharing among anyone who wishes to do so.

If you’ve ever been interested in picking the game up, now is the perfect time.

**Rating: 9.5/10**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #beehaw


	13. Let the Good Times Roll

Live free or die.

Those were the sentiments of the settlers in the Space Between. Whether by choice or by circumstance, they now lived in the stretch of land between two warring forces.

The land was wild, untamed. Most of it was desert, wasteland, deemed uninhabitable by the rich politicians and business owners in the capital cities. Pretty much, with wildlife and megaflora that proved fatal to any travellers or explorers that seeked to claim it.

Uninhabitable. Except, of course, for the people who lived there.

People would live anywhere, given the chance and enough time to adapt. Especially when they had little other choice.

 

* * *

 

Goldie Bernhardt approached to the town square, her cattle trailing behind her. White Falls was a small outpost in the Valley, a one-horse town out in the middle of nowhere. It was a stop on the railroad to most people. It had two streets.

Goldie loved it. It had _charm._

She didn’t live in town, of course; her ranch was a mile or so out towards the river. She came in for supplies, mail, and the occasional socialization. And then, of course, there was the time every year when she brought livestock to market.

She felt a pull on their leads. “Easy now,” she whispered, soothingly. “Everything’s fine.”

Still, she glanced around the town square, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was _wrong._

It was mid morning, the sun hadn’t yet reached its apex in the sky. People milled about the street as the shops set up for the day. Goldie nodded at the blacksmith as he opened his door.

What had the cows so spooked?

 

* * *

 

“Alright, so that’s what, a search check?” Yang asked, swiping through the character sheet on her scroll.

“What’s your passive?” Jaune asked from behind his screen. He’d unfolded a four-panel piece of painted cardboard and set it up as a barrier on his side of the table, where his dice and notes could be hidden from the view of the average player.

 _Passive, passive…_ Oh, there it was. “Twelve,” said Yang. “But the cows tipped me off so I’m actively trying to look around.”

“Sure, go ahead and roll.”

Yang picked up one of her orange dice and rolled. “And I just add it to the number here?”

Jaune nodded. “Right where it says ‘Search,’ yeah.”

“Nineteen, then.”

Jaune scribbled something on his side of the screen. “Okay. You feel a rumbling under your feet, gradually getting stronger. You’re pretty sure that’s what’s spooking the cows.”

Yang grinned. “Alright, action time! I grab my twin shotguns and get ready for whatever’s approaching.”

“You can only use one of them at a time.”

“What do you mean? One for each hand.”

Jaune shook his head. “Shotguns are two-handed weapons.”

Yang blinked, then glanced down to her wrists, where Ember Celica usually rested in bracelet form when they weren’t in school. “...since when?”

“It’s part of the _gritty mystery mechanics_ of the game,” said Nora, suddenly leaning over Yang’s shoulder to peer at her character sheet. “Or at least, they wanted to balance things out, because you know how we can only fit so much onto our weapon frames in real life? On paper, you could just keep adding and adding and adding, so they make you use weapons that are only one kind of weapon.”

She circled around the table and pulled up a chair next to Jaune. Ren and Pyrrha followed, but they sat at the table next to them, opting not to interfere with the game.

“Hey, guys!” chirped Ruby, waving happily.

“Hello again!” said Pyrrha. “We came to give you all support, Jaune said you’d never played before.”

“I thought this kind of game was supposed to be a fantasy,” Yang grumbled.

“I can let you swap those out for smaller guns,” said Jaune. “That way you can dual-wield them.”

“They won’t be _shotguns,_ though.”

Jaune shook his head. “Before we get back into it, did anyone else have any other questions about their character sheets? I know you said they were fine but it’s never bad to ask, this game’s all about communication.”

Blake raised her hand. “Actually, there was some stuff I wanted you to check out, just to make sure it was okay to use.”

“Sure.” Jaune swiped through his own scroll for a bit. “Oh, hey, Blake, you’re a faunus.”

The room didn’t go silent, not exactly, since the background noise of conversation from across the rest of the library never stopped. Even still, it felt like it should have. Yang quickly buried herself in her own scroll, trying not to look at any of the others.

Weiss paled. “I didn’t tell him! I swear I didn’t!”

Jaune raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t tell me wh—” He froze. “...oh. Um. Oh.”

Nora blinked. Her eyes glanced up to Blake’s bow, and then she broke into a huge grin of sudden discovery. Ren and Pyrrha glanced at each other and then back down to their own scrolls.

Blake dropped her head onto the table. “Weiss. My _character._ I rolled a faunus _character._ ”

“...oh.”

 

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen  
** **Let the Good Times Roll**

* * *

  

The ground shook, and a high-pitched metallic squeal pierced the air. Goldie turned around, her guns drawn instinctively, to see a passenger train pull into the station.

She took a deep breath. Just a train. That’s all it was.

She glanced back at her two prize cows, who were now staring placidly back at her. “This is your fault,” she told them, pitching her voice low. “You got me riled up over nothin’.”

There was a rustle behind her. “Mornin’, Goldie. Bit jumpy today, aren’t you?”

She turned around and holstered her guns. “Mornin’, Ryder.”

Redd Ryder was one of those people that just seemed to _fit._ She’d grown up here in White Falls and hadn’t been Deputy more than three weeks before the old Sheriff died, leaving her with the job. She’d made do, of course, and the town was the better for it.

Ryder currently stood on the porch of the town jail, which doubled as her office most days. Her hat was pulled low, and with her bangs pressed down, only one silver eye was visible, peering past her dark red locks. Her poncho hung off one shoulder like a red cloak. It blew gently in the morning breeze.

She nodded towards Goldie’s weapons. “You know there’s a law against drawing firearms in city limits.”

It might have rankled Goldie, being cautioned by someone younger and smaller than her, but Ryder was good people. She’d _earned_ her reputation, tooth and nail. And besides, Goldie owed her.

“Won’t happen again,” Goldie reassured her. “Somethin’ spooked my girls, is all.”

She reached out to scratch the head of one of the cows. “Saa, girl, it’s alright. See? Just the train.”

Ryder frowned, staring past her. “That’s a passenger train coming in.”

Goldie glanced back. Sure enough, the train pulling into the station had coach cars instead of freight attached to the locomotive. “Yeah?”

“The Beacon Limited only comes through in the afternoons,” Ryder explained. She unlimbered her own weapon, a massive hunting rifle that almost seemed as big as the young woman herself. “Polity runs mail and freight in the mornings, but never passengers, and the Union lines don’t stop here at all.”

Ryder chambered a round but kept the rifle low, at the ready but not quite pointed at the incoming train.

And what a train it was. Most of the railcars that passed through the Sanguine Valley were as rough as the wilderness itself, scuffed and dingy from the multiple trips through the hostile lands. This train was almost spotless, aside from the thin layer of dirt kicked up from the trip to White Falls. The passenger cars matched the engine, with its brushed steel frame and brass piping. It looked sleek, it looked fast, and it looked _expensive._ Whoever came to town in something like that was someone who wanted to make a good first impression.

With a hiss of escaping steam, the train came to a stop, and Goldie had the chance to prove herself right.

A young woman stepped out of the front car. Her dress was blue as the sky, perfectly tailored to her frame. Her skirts billowed out conservatively, held in place by some unseen architecture; not quite a bustle, but enough to keep her legs covered but her movements unimpeded. Her hat matched the dress, perched carefully but asymmetrically on her elegant coiffure, hair as white as snow and done up in an elaborate but sensible braid. Her eyes were as blue as her dress—

 

* * *

 

“I don’t think you need to go into that much detail, Weiss.”

Weiss crossed her arms and sighed dramatically. “Excuse me, but you _asked_ me to _describe myself._ ”

Ruby shrugged. “She’s got you there, Jaune, you did ask her that.”

“Yeah, that one’s kinda on you,” Yang agreed.

“Alright, alright, that’s fair,” Jaune said, holding up his hands defensively. “What else can you tell us about yourself?”

“What did we just tell him?” Ruby stage-whispered over to her sister.

“It’s the only way he’ll learn,” replied Yang.

Weiss ignored both of them and went back to her character sheet. “Okay, so I’m dressed sensibly but fashionably, with her blue dress, blue hat, snow white hair, and blue eyes. I’m carrying a cane – decorative, not functional, like you’d see a bank manager or someone else use. Polished mahogany, gold and silver inlay, and topped with a large blue gem.”

“Okay, got you all set,” said Jaune, tapping on his scroll. “You step off the train and glance around to see the dingy, dirty surroundings of an outpost town, the one that you’ve come all this way to see. It’s about what you expected, honestly. How do you wish to proceed?”

Weiss blinked. “Um. What are my options?”

“Whatever you’d like to do now.”

“No, really, what choices do I have?” Weiss held up her character sheet. “There are rules, right? And specific options? What kind of structure is there in this game?”

“It’s a storytelling game,” Pyrrha said from the other table. “You have your character, and your abilities, and your personality. The structure in deciding your actions is what you think your character would do, or what you yourself would do in that scenario.”

“You don’t need to worry about the rules,” Nora added. “That’s what Jaune’s for! You just say what you want to do, and Jaune will tell you what you need to do to make it happen. So if you wanted to blow up the train…”

“I’m not blowing up the train!”

“ _If_ you wanted to blow up the train, just say how you’d do it, and Jaune will tell you if it works.” Nora leaned on his shoulder and poked him a couple times in the temple. “He’s got it aaaaaall in there.”

“Well, _that’s_ comforting,” Weiss muttered to herself. She peered at her character sheet again and frowned in thought. “So I just say what I’m doing?”

“Unless you want to act it out directly,” Jaune confirmed. “Whichever’s easiest for you.”

She placed her scroll down on the table, humming thoughtfully to herself. “Alright. Then yes, I step off the train and look at these two delinquents – I do see them there, yes?”

“They’re out in the open, watching you,” said Jaune.

“Okay. I walk up to them directly and say—”

 

* * *

 

“—Excuse me, hello, I was wondering if you could help me?”

Ryder and Goldie glanced at each other in confusion.

“Quite possibly, ma’am,” said Ryder, reaching up to lift the brim of her hat out of her eyes. “‘Course, that would depend on the what with.”

“And the who,” Goldie added. “All due respect, ma’am, but we don’t often get cityfolk out here.”

“Hey, who’s the sheriff around here?”

“I’m _helping._ ”

The woman glanced between them and nodded thoughtfully. “Right! My name is Bianca La Neve, and I’m here representing La Neve Savings and Loan.”

“You’re a banker?” Goldie asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “Never did trust bankers.”

“Not exactly,” said Bianca. She reached up with a white-gloved hand and adjusted her hat. “There’s an inconsistency in your town’s records, and I’ve come to investigate. I’m actually very glad that you were already here, Sheriff Ryder, as that saves me the trouble of finding you.”

“Finding _me?_ ” Ryder’s eyes went wide. “What for?”

Bianca shifted her grip on her cane and started walking sedately away from the station. “My business here is of a legal nature, and you are the representative of the law. I would appreciate your support in this venture.” She glanced at Goldie over her shoulder. “You, I’m not entirely certain of.”

“My business is business,” said Goldie as she and Ryder fell into step behind her. “Anything that disrupts that is of interest to me, since otherwise I’m up a creek.”

“What business is that?”

“Cattle. You wanna buy a cow?” Goldie jerked her thumb over her own shoulder at the two cows trailing behind.

“Why would I want to buy a cow?”

“Because they’re a friend you can drink!”

Ryder groaned. “I told you to use a different sales pitch, that one’s never going to work.”

“My sales pitch is the _truth,_ ” Goldie countered. “Everybody wants truth in advertising, right? Well, this is the truth they can handle.”

“I don’t know if anyone can handle that truth.”

 

* * *

 

The first thing that Bianca needed for her investigation was local information, and there was really only one place in town for that.

The Salty Goat tavern was the most popular establishment in White Falls. It was, of course, the _only_ such establishment in town, but that didn’t mean that they got complacent with their default status as the best.

It was a prime destination for nearly everyone. For the weary traveller, the Salty Goat rented rooms for relatively cheap. For the thirsty and the bored, the bar was open day and night, with live entertainment in the evenings. And for those who were seeking someone or something a little bit outside the proper legal channels? Well, _everyone_ talked to their friendly neighborhood bartender.

The tavern was quiet in the late mornings; most of its regular clientele had jobs or other diversions during the day. It was hardly empty, however; a trio of surly men had set up shop at one of the larger tables in the room. They were rough from riding the trail, and were immersed in their card game. Against the wall, a short woman in a vest and coattails sat at the bench of a piano, plucking away at the keys in a carefree manner. A large glass mug sat at the end of the piano, stuffed with gold coins – tips from the night before.

Other patrons were scattered around the room, keeping mostly to themselves.

A well-polished bar stretched across the far end of the room, the wood stained a pleasant reddish brown and inlaid with brass in simple, yet decorative designs. Beer barrels lined the wall behind the bar, and glass bottles of all kinds framed the shelves above and below the barrels. Closer to the far end of the bar was a large wood-burning stove, upon which a large pot bubbled merrily.

The bartender raised an eyebrow as the three women pushed their way into tavern. She stood behind the bar, a dish cloth draped casually over one shoulder. She had eyes that reflected gold across the dimly-lit room, almost seeming to glow with an inner light. Her ears sat atop her head, peeking out from the mess of hair, dark as midnight – a faunus, and feline at that. She wore a simple purple tunic that left her arms bared, and as she crossed them expectantly, ropy muscles shifted under the golden brown skin. Not quite as broad of shoulder as Goldie, but those arms looked about as dangerous as steel cables.

“Mornin’, sugar,” said Goldie, tipping her hat in greeting. “You’re up early.”

“It’s my bar,” said the bartender in a flat voice. “You know that you can’t bring _those_ in here, Bernhardt.”

Goldie feigned a gasp. “I thought you liked our dear Sheriff. And while Bianca here isn’t really a local, I’m sure you’ll like her just fine once you get to know her.”

Bianca lowered herself into a slight curtsy. “Charmed, ma’am.”

The bartender stared at her, almost searchingly. “Isabelle Nightshade,” she said, after a moment. “This is my establishment. Kitchen’s closed, but I’ve got a stew on if you’re hungry.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the pot on the stove behind her.

“See, told you that you’d warm up to ‘em,” Goldie said, her voice silken.

“Wasn’t talking about the city girl,” said Isabelle. “I meant _them._ ”

She raised her hand and pointed directly at the two cows that had followed Goldie into the tavern.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, shit, I forgot all about them,” Yang said, holding back a laugh.

“You forgot about your _cows?_ ” Weiss exclaimed, her voice high-pitched and reproachful.

“In my defense, there’s like seven thousand things on this character sheet, and it’s not my fault.”

Jaune grinned. “I’d forgotten about them too. Good catch, Blake.”

Yang clasped her hand to her chest dramatically. “Betrayal!”

The ghost of a smile crossed Blake’s face for just a moment. “You made such a big deal about getting them in the first place, I was just making sure they didn’t get lost in the scene.”

“I will let it slide because that was _hilarious,_ ” said Yang. “Just know that I will _not_ forget this declaration of war.”

“Bring it, Goldie.”

Yang grinned. “Alright, Snoozles, I’m going to head outside to tie the cattle to the… what’s outside, a horse parking meter?”

“Hitching post, and sure, that’s fine,” said Jaune, marking something down. “That doesn’t take too long. By the time you get back inside, Bianca and Isabelle have probably started talking, right?”

Blake glanced at Weiss. “...yeah, I think so.”

She coughed and dropped her voice back down an octave, to the cadence she was using for Isabelle Nightshade. “‘So I guess I should ask…’”

 

* * *

 

“...what’s a city girl doing in a place like this?”

“I’m a representative of La Neve Savings and Loan,” said Bianca. “There were reports of a robbery out this way, and I’m following up. I don’t suppose you’d know where I could start looking?”

There was a rustle at a table behind them. Bianca ignored it.

“Lot of robberies out in the Space Between,” Isabelle said, noncommittally.

“This one was big,” Bianca insisted. “Three freight cars of gold, travelling from the mine out of Skout Bluff. Train made it in safely – minus those three cars.”

Isabelle shook her head. “Can’t say I know of it. Don’t know why they’re sending you out after them, though. Thought mine rail was insured.”

“...it is.”

“So why are they sending you after it?” Isabelle grabbed the dishcloth off her shoulder and started wiping down the surface of the bar. “Has to be something more than just missing gold.”

“Sure, but three rail cars full of it?” Goldie chimed in. “That’s nothin’ to sneeze at.”

“That’s right,” said Bianca. “We intend to protect our investments.”

The rustling behind them got louder. The four women turned to see a man struggling to stand up from one of the tables in the middle of the room. His skin was dry and yellowed, and his sunken eyes stared at them from underneath his poncho. When he spoke, it was in a rattling hiss.

_“Liaaaarrrrr….”_

Isabelle’s hands dropped to her sides, almost far too casually reaching underneath the bar. “Alright, Jones, I think you’ve had enough for one day. You should head back home.”

The diseased-looking man – Jones – pushed away from the table. It topped onto its side with a resounding clatter.

_“Vanguard spyyyyyyyyy…”_

He straightened suddenly and his dirty, tattered clothing appeared to evaporate in a burst of black smoke. His arms stretched into a pair of void-black limbs, tipped with wickedly sharp claws the shade of polished bone. His face contorted and bulged out as his eyes burned red, and he let out an unholy howl that sent the rest of the tavern dwellers scurrying for the door.

 

* * *

 

“What the _hell,_ he’s turning into a _Grimm?_ ”

Jaune grinned. “Before your very eyes. Your minds race as you see the spectacle before you, and though it seems impossible, there’s no denying what stands in the middle of the room.

He placed his scroll in the middle of the table and enabled the projector. A wireframe hologram sprang into view, showing a top-down view of the inside of the tavern, sectioned off into squares. Four blinking circles phased into view in those squares. Red, white, purplish-black, and yellow; each labelled with one of their characters’ names. As they watched, a fifth circle – in the red and black color scheme of the creatures of Grimm – popped into place in front of them.

“Each of you have your available combat actions and the stats of your weapons over on the second tab of your sheets,” Jaune continued. “Pull those up and get ready, because I’m going to need all of you to roll for initiative.”

It took a few minutes for everyone to work out what they needed to do for combat. Jaune came around the table to help, then went back to begin the fight.

“Wait, why am I going last?”

“You rolled a one on your initiative roll. Higher is faster.”

“But I’m the fastest! Shouldn’t that matter?”

“That’s why you added the three to it, but everyone else still rolled higher than you.”

“This game makes _no sense at all._ ”

Weiss glanced at her position on the map, then back at her character sheet. “Can I opt to go later? I want to see what he does.”

“He just turned into a _Grimm,_ ” Yang pointed out. “That’s what he does.”

Weiss nodded. “That’s what I mean, though. That’s _weird,_ right? Or is that something that I’d already have expected to happen in this world?”

Jaune tried and failed to hide a smile. “The rest of you had no idea that was possible. Bianca… you’ve never _seen_ it happen.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. She watched Weiss closely.

“Alright, that’s about what I thought,” said Weiss. “So can I go later?”

“Sure,” Jaune confirmed. “You can either forfeit your turn entirely and wait to go again next round, or you can prepare an action to wait for something to happen.”

“That one, please.”

“Okay, then what are you holding and what are you waiting for?”

Weiss glanced around. “Can I send it to you directly?”

“Sure.”

Yang shook her head as Weiss busied herself with her scroll. “Keeping secrets?”

Weiss sent her message to Jaune and placed her scroll back down on the table in one smooth motion. “I just don’t want to say it out loud in case I’m wrong.”

“Alright, then. Keep your secrets.” Yang started rattling her dice in her hand and jerked her head over to where Blake was sitting. “That means Isabelle’s up, right? Then me?”

“Not quite.” Jaune hunched down in his chair and started twitching his shoulders, aping the movements of the enemy he controlled. “The Grimm shuffles forward, burning red eyes glancing over each of you as he selects his target…”

 

* * *

 

The man who used to be Jones raised his arms and screamed. A black miasma billowed out from underneath his poncho and spread over the four women, causing them to double with choking coughs. He swung his arms forward, catching Goldie under the chin with a wild swipe, his claws scoring red trails in her skin.

Isabelle took a leap over the bar, charging past the other women and sliding around behind the Grimm. She jabbed the dagger in her right hand straight into his back, then reversed her grip and dragged it upwards, tearing a large hole in his poncho. A fresh stream of black smoke sprayed out at her from the rend, but she had already darted backwards and brought her left hand to bear, firing the small pistol she’d retrieved from underneath the bar. The bullet went wide, tearing a chunk off the overturned table beside them.

 _(“Oh, sure,_ she _gets to use two weapons at once.”)_

_(“You’re welcome to trade out for smaller guns, Yang.”)_

_(“That’s not the_ point. _”)_

Goldie winked and flipped her shotgun into her hands, unloading both barrels as she walked steadily forward. “Shame, Jonesy. You weren’t all that bad. Terrible at cards, though.”

The Grimm flew backwards from the force, a large messy hole in its abdomen. It pulled itself to its feet and threw its arms to the side, unleashing another stream of miasma – this time at the fleeing civilians. The black smoke covered the doorway before it dispersed, leaving three people twitching on the floor. The smoke seemed to cling to them, swirling around their eyes and mouths, and one after another, they grew still.

For a moment, at least. It wasn’t long before they, too, pulled themselves to their feet, their features bulging and breaking in much the same way Jones had done not moments before.

“He’s infecting them!” Goldie shouted, hurriedly loading new shells into her gun.

But Bianca was waiting for this. She twirled her cane expertly, bringing the crystal forward as she shouted an incantation. Her eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire, which then spread throughout the rest of her body, pooling in the hand that held the cane. With a second shout, she thrust the end towards the new Grimm. Her cane erupted into a stream of nearly liquid fire, which slammed into the three hapless figures with the force of a fire hose. There was a terrible noise, an unearthly howl that seemed to resonate within the very walls of the tavern itself.

Just as suddenly as it began, however, it stopped, and Bianca lowered her cane and ended the stream of fire. Of the new Grimm there was no sign, save a greasy burnt patch on the wooden floor and a flickering flame where the doorjamb had caught.

Ryder knelt on the ground, using an upturned chair to steady her high-powered hunting rifle. She’d taken this time to prepare, and she aimed carefully down the sights. It was as natural as breathing to her. In, and she rested her finger on the trigger. Out, and she pulled—

 

* * *

 

Ruby stared at her roll in disbelief. “...what?”

“What did you roll for your attack?” Jaune prompted, his eyes flickering up from his notebook, waiting to mark down the damage.

“I..uh. I don’t want to say.”

Yang leaned over and grinned. “Easiest number to count to, Ruby.”

Weiss let out a shocked gasp. “You didn’t.”

Ruby dropped her head onto the table with a resigned thud. “The dice are trying to kill me!”

Jaune nodded. “Your gun jams.”

“My _gun_ jams?”

“Your gun jams.”

“My gun _jams?_ ”

“That’s what I said. You can take the rest of your turn trying to clear it, or you can do something else.”

“I put everything I had into that gun!” Ruby wailed. “I don’t _have_ something else!”

“Okay, so that’s your turn, but we’ll say you were able to clear it and you can try again next round.”

“This game makes _no sense._ ”

 

* * *

 

The battle raged on, but eventually the four women were able to put poor Jonesy out of his misery. With a final dying gasp, the Grimm faded away, leaving nothing behind but a dirty poncho and a sack of gold coins.

Ryder went outside to reassure the terrified citizens that everything was safe now. Isabelle took the opportunity to start straightening up the destroyed tavern. This left Bianca and Goldie alone to talk.

This was, Bianca felt, less than ideal.

“Dust Sorceress, huh?” Goldie let out an appreciative whistle. “Haven’t seen one this far west of the border in a long time.”

“It’s a skill that I’ve trained, nothing more,” said Bianca. She pulled out a handkerchief and started wiping carbon residue off the crystal embedded in her cane. Fire spells were useful, but _messy._ “I’d imagine most would be capable, if they had sufficient motivation.”

“Motivation, sure. Money, not so much.” Goldie reached into her vest and pulled out a flask. “Polity don’t care much that we’re out here, so long as we’re a buffer between them and the Union.”

“You settlers hold the line—”

“We’re not holdin’ shit.” Goldie took a swig and replaced the cap. “We’re the canaries in the gods-damned Dust mines to you city-folk. If we start dying, that means it’s time to break out the big guns, but none o’ y’all really care what happens to us outside of that.”

“Do you have a point?” asked Bianca, her tone solidifying into a block of solid ice.

Goldie kicked out and righted a chair, before dropping herself into it. “No point. Just wanted you to know that you’re not as invisible out here as you hoped.”

“If she’s trying to be invisible, she’s doing a very poor job of it,” Isabelle called from the doorway. She had a washcloth out and was scrubbing hopelessly at the burned patches on the door. “Warn a girl next time you want to set fire to her bar, will you?”

“I’ll try to be more careful,” muttered Bianca through gritted teeth.

“‘Course, if you want there to be a next time, you’d best tell us what Jonesy meant ‘fore he turned,” added Goldie. “Vanguard spy, was it?”

“You’re going to take the word of a Grimm-touched?”

Ryder pushed her way into the building, her rifle slung over her shoulder. “Is that what those look like? I’ve only heard the reports.”

“Nasty piece of work,” Goldie agreed. “Union scientists experimenting on Grimm was bad enough, but now they’re puttin’ flesh and blood people into the mix?”

She shuddered. “That’s just unholy.”

“He did call you Vanguard spy though,” Isabelle agreed.

“You were all the way over behind the bar,” Bianca protested. “You couldn’t possibly have heard that.”

Isabelle reached up and tapped her ears, which stood out prominently on top of her head. “This is my bar, sweetheart. I hear _everything._ ”

“You looked like you were expecting him to infect the others,” Ryder mused. “Did you know that would happen?”

“I had a hunch.”

“So let me ask you this,” Goldie continued. “What are you really here to investigate? ‘Cause I don’t think they send out Vanguard agents for a simple bit of tax evasion.”

Bianca took a deep breath. _In for a copper…_ “You’re right. I am an operative for the Vanguard. The Union’s making a push for this sector, and I want to know why.”

_(“Whoa, how do you know all this?”)_

_(“Jaune put it in the backstory for my character sheet. Didn’t you read yours?”)_

_(“I skimmed it!”)_

“I _was_ going to talk about this in private with local law enforcement, but we got sidetracked.”

“And a good thing, too,” said Goldie. “Poor Jonesy.”

“So what’s your plan?” Isabelle asked. “Are you going to go in and set fire to every building until you find a lead?”

“I wasn’t planning on—”

“Clearly. Though you did at least stumble onto the right place. I don’t just trade in gold and liquor here. I also deal in secrets. How much will you pay me to keep yours?”

Bianca narrowed her eyes. “Is that a threat?”

Isabelle let out a light chuckle. “Oh, no. Just a simple truth. Vanguard operatives work in secret, and these kinds of missions are a bit under the table, aren’t they? The kind of thing that the rest of the Polity doesn’t like to admit they do.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, they aren’t expecting you home until you do your job. And honestly, the Between is a dangerous place. They’re probably not expecting you at home at all—”

 

* * *

 

Weiss stood up suddenly. Her chair scraped against the tile, making a very loud scraping sound.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t play this game anymore.”

Jaune blinked. “Weiss, is everything—?”

“Everything’s fine. I had a surprisingly lovely time.” Weiss snapped her scroll shut, her movements clipped and somewhat robotic. “I just have to leave. I’m sorry.”

She hurried out of the library.

“Weiss?” Ruby called after her.

Blake sunk in her chair. “I was just… the character was supposed to be suspicious, and I thought…”

“It’s not your fault,” said Yang. “That was just… I don’t know what that was.”

 

* * *

 

It was later. The girls had offered to help Jaune clean up, but he waved them off. It didn’t take much to clean up after a session, he’d said, and the rest of JNPR reassured them that they’d stick around to make sure nothing got left behind.

Ruby didn’t go straight back to the dorm. She did take a moment to confirm that Weiss did in fact go back to the room on her own, though her text messages were as polite and withdrawn as ever. At least she was responding to texts, though; Ruby didn’t think she could handle a second disappearance and rescue in less than a week.

She _really_ hoped that they weren’t going to be making a habit of this. As confident as Professor Ozpin had sounded, she really didn’t want to have to have that conversation with him again anytime soon. Or ever again.

And so, with only a minor pit stop between the library and Jinjur Hall, Ruby found herself knocking on her own door. “Hey, Weiss? Are you awake?”

Silence met her. Ruby raised her hand to try again.

“It’s okay,” Weiss’s voice said just before Ruby’s knuckles made contact a second time. “I’m up.”

Ruby swiped her scroll across the reader and pushed the door open. “Hey,” she said again, rocking herself back and forth on her heels anxiously. “Everything okay? You left very suddenly.”

Weiss was sitting on her bed, her face cast in shadow from the dangling blanket from Ruby’s bed, which was lofted above hers. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, we can help you make sure,” said Ruby. She held the door open wider. “We brought food.”

Yang and Blake entered the room behind her, each carrying trays of sweets and baked goods from the cafeteria. They set them carefully on the nightstand between the beds.

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” said Weiss, already reaching for a macaron. “You really didn’t need to go through all the trouble.”

“It was Blake’s idea,” said Ruby softly.

Weiss glanced up in surprise.

“I didn’t mean for the game to get so intense,” said Blake. She was standing awkwardly to the side, one arm tucked behind her, her hand squeezing unconsciously at her other elbow. “The sheet Jaune sent me said to question everything, so that’s what I was doing.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Weiss after a moment. She grabbed another cookie and started nibbling on its edge. “I was actually having a lot of fun with that. When Jaune mentioned the game last week, I thought it would be boring, but I was really kind of getting into it.”

“Then what happened?” Ruby prodded.

“It just hit a little too close,” said Weiss. “The stuff about not being able to go home.”

She pulled out her scroll and opened up her inbox. “I got a letter today from my father’s office. He’s going to be out of town for the next week, and he’s taking his support staff with him.”

“What does that mean?” asked Blake.

“It means I can’t go home right now.” Weiss gave an empty smile to the rest of her team. “He wanted so much to keep me in Atlas for school, and now that I’m gone, I can’t go back until the end of the year.”

Ruby glanced at Yang. Her sister was already looking in her direction, and raised an eyebrow pointedly.

Ruby tilted her head. _Are you sure?_

Yang nodded.

“So when I started laying into you during the game,” Blake mused, trailing off.

Weiss shook her head. “It’s not your fault! You didn’t know. And that was a really good tactic, too. Bianca wasn’t going to let anything slip, but that was the best way to force her to talk.”

Ruby sat down next to Weiss. “So, you know that Yang and I are going home over break, right?”

“That’s all you two have been talking about lately,” Weiss grumbled.

“Well, then how about you come with us?”

Yang grinned. “Yeah, we were going to take the ferry to Patch tomorrow, and there’s always extra seats.”

Weiss froze. “You...what?”

“It’s better than you staying here,” said Ruby. “So instead of it being just you and Blake in an empty school, you can come meet Dad!”

“You can come too,” said Yang, sidling up next to Blake. “It’s quiet, and we’ve got a lot of books.”

“Yeah, Dad’s a teacher! It’ll be great, I can show you where we went to school, and introduce you to my friends, and you can meet Zwei…”

“Are you sure it won’t be an imposition?” asked Weiss.

Yang waved a hand dismissively. “Please, Dad’s been on our case to meet you guys since day one. He’ll be thrilled.”

“We’ve got a guest room but also we can drag the air mattresses up and you can sleep in our room!”

Weiss turned her attention to Blake and mouthed the words “air mattresses?”

“If you don’t think it’ll be an issue,” Blake said, ignoring Weiss, “I’m fine with it.”

“I guess if it’s not trouble,” Weiss agreed.

Ruby cheered. “Yessssss! Team RWBY slumber party at home! I’ll go call Dad!”

“Wait, you didn’t even ask him yet?” Weiss stood up and followed after Ruby. “Ruby, you can’t invite us over without asking your father! _Ruby!_ ”

 

* * *

**World of Remnant  
Signal Academy**

The four Huntsman Academies – Beacon, Haven, Shade, and Atlas – are rather specialized schools. Their jobs are to take qualified trainees and mold them into licensed Huntsmen, to prepare them for a life outside the Kingdoms and their diplomatic structures. Application to these prestigious institutions is open to all who pass a placement exam, and while students can be taken from almost anywhere, the majority of applicants come from the feeder combat schools.

Signal Academy is the closest combat school to Beacon, both physically and functionally. Established on the island of Patch, just off the coast of Vale’s capital, Signal boasts a surprisingly high number of successful Huntsmen along its alumni. As a combat school, it takes the place of a traditional civilian high school, with a heavy focus on weaponry and combat skills. Students are expected to design and forge their own weapons during their years at Signal, and multiple classes and resources are available for those who wish to study more esoteric and personalized forms.

Not all students of combat schools go on to become Huntsmen, and Signal is no different. It offers branching paths of study in criminology and law, providing Vale with aspiring police and city guards with the ability and knowledge to repel all but the strongest of Grimm from the borders. Having law enforcement around with unlocked Auras and Semblances is also a boon to the city, as more and more criminals are doing the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaune’s experience as game master has told him that players get more invested in story hooks if they get to share them with each other, instead of waiting for NPCs to get the ball rolling. When done well, it absolutely works.


	14. Patching Things Up

“Perfect, we’re all set!” Ruby cheered as she snapped her scroll closed. “Dad’s getting tickets for the ferry, and we’ll help you clear out the guest room. This is gonna be great!”

Blake shut the door behind her as she came back into the room. Her nightly shower was a calming routine, more than anything else. A vestige, perhaps; a holdover from a time not so long past, when mornings were times of movement and action, and any self-care had to be done the night before. Which was a bit antithetical to calm, if she thought about it, but… it was a routine. It was _familiar._

That was what she’d say if asked, and definitely not that she felt uncomfortable overhearing a private conversation between family members.

It wasn’t just her own parents that Blake knew she needed to talk to; there were quite a few people she’d run away from over the past five years. People she trusted, who’d trusted her in return. People she owed more than just a hey-how’s-the-weather to. People like Russet, or Ilia, or River… and yes, also her parents. The last time she’d spoken to them was just before her application to Beacon, when they’d offered to sign her transcripts. That was the most they’d talked in five years, and it was… awkward, to say the least.

She couldn’t actually talk to them. Not then, not now. Not after what she’d said when she left. They wouldn’t— they _couldn’t_ forgive her for that. And she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted them to.

Maybe she could start small.

She became aware that everyone was staring at her. She glanced up, noting their confused and worried expressions. “Um…?”

“Ruby was asking you about allergies,” said Yang. “Our house is a ways into the forest, and we wanted to make sure.”

“Specifically sunflowers or dogs,” added Ruby. “Since we have a lot of them.”

Blake felt her ears twitch. “A lot of dogs?”

“Sunflowers,” Yang clarified. “We just have the one dog. He’s a sweetheart, but if you’ve got a problem, we can keep him away.”

“One dog should be fine,” Blake lied.

“Great,” said Ruby. “No allergies?”

“None that I know of. Definitely not to sunflowers.” Blake dropped her shower caddy onto the floor next to her bed. “I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, so I’m pretty sure I’ve been around most things by now.”

“Noted.”

The evening went on, and the rest of the girls finished getting ready for bed. Blake pushed her shower basket away from her bookshelf as she made a nighttime selection. She really should put it away properly, but she was tired. That made it a problem for Future Blake to sort out.

The clinking of jars grabbed her attention, and she pulled out the jar of soothing cream Velvet gave her. Just looking at it sparked a fresh awareness of how sore her ears were under her bow. She’d used the cream a couple times, when the chafing was especially hard to ignore, and it absolutely helped.

She glanced up to see the other girls staring at her again. This was becoming a bad habit.

“What is it this time?” she asked sullenly, feeling the weight of her embarrassment nearly knock her through the floor to the room below.

“You know,” Yang said carefully, “you don’t need to wear that around us. We don’t mind.”

Blake dropped her hand. She hadn’t noticed that it had been above her head, fiddling with her bow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s alright if you want to still wear it,” said Ruby. “We just wanted to let you know that we’re fine either way, so if that’s what was stopping you…”

Weiss nodded. “After last week, I completely understand wanting to hide from people. From me, in particular.”

“And look, she’s Nice Weiss now! You don’t need to hide from Nice Weiss!”

“...I suppose I deserved that…”

“What? I said you were nice! Yang, tell her that I said she was nice.”

Blake tuned out the playful bickering of the others. It faded away into background noise, as it so often did. It had concerned her the first few times she’d overheard it. Arguments in the White Fang frequently resulted in drawn weapons, and had to be quelled before they got to that point.

Ruby and Yang’s oddball rants were many things, but they were never that kind of violent confrontation. The sisters tended to bounce off each other with little to no provocation, and their altercations rarely resulted in hurt feelings. Sometimes it seemed that nothing would really get between them. They were too close. Weiss would sometimes get caught up in it, mostly to be the astonished straight man of their vaudevillesque routine, but she left those arguments smiling sometimes when she didn’t think anyone was watching.

Aside from the occasional sardonic remark, Blake didn’t join in. That was their thing. But it had definitely gone from alarming to comforting in her mind, in a shockingly short period of time even, and it was comforting to see again after the last week of tension.

Ruby was right, she didn’t need to wear the bow around them. It wasn’t like they didn’t know, not anymore. The bow wasn’t for herself, it was for everyone else. So that the people of the Kingdoms didn’t stop at the ears and judge her for what they wanted her to be.

She reached up and found the ends of the ribbon. Slowly. Carefully. Ignoring how the white noise of the Rose/Xiao Long Comedy Hour died down as she did, because if she focused on that she’d lose her nerve.

Blake was ashamed of many things in her life, but being a faunus was never supposed to be one of them. And she wouldn’t be. Not here, among friends who accepted her for who and what she was. Her friends who had heard her past – _seen_ and _fought_ her past, even - and decided that it didn’t change how they saw her.

Keep moving forward. She would not be ashamed of who she was, who she wanted to be.

She brought her hands down and stared at the loose ribbon in her hands. The sudden spike of renewed terror shot through her, the panic clutching at her nerves as it passed.

The others were watching her. Waiting for her to speak on her terms. Their faces were open, easily-read. Ruby, her silver eyes wide with happiness. Yang, with her soft, almost casual smile of pride. Weiss, trying not to stare, supportiveness warring with reactionary fear, which would probably take a lot longer than a week to really go away, but willing to make the effort nonetheless.

Blake couldn’t imagine how she looked to them.

“I’m going to keep wearing it to classes,” she said, defensively.

“You do what you need to,” said Yang. “We’re just happy you feel safe with us.”

“You should always feel safe at home,” Ruby added.

They turned away and finished preparing for bed, perhaps picking up how self-conscious Blake was feeling already. Conversation turned to classwork, then to preparations for their impending ferry trip.

Blake sat on her bed, massaging the medicinal cream into her ears. It did help with the chafing, and maybe if she wasn’t sleeping with the ribbon on, her ears would have a chance to heal up faster. There were worn patches where the fur had rubbed completely off, and that might start growing back if she was careful. The older scars were left over from long before she started wearing the bow, and there was a particularly noticeable notch in her right ear – a souvenir from a very bad mission. But those, too, were a part of her, and she didn’t have to hide them, either.

It was still scary. She felt vulnerable without the ribbon. Exposed. But at the same time, it was a relief. She hadn’t even realized how much anxiety she’d been carrying about it until it went away.

This was her, scars and all, open and visible to people for the first time in a long time, and they were okay with it. They were okay with _her._

She leaned back and let her head hit the pillows. The fabric was cool and soft against her ears, and she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the feeling as she settled in.

She cracked an eyelid open. “Ruby, if you keep staring, I’m putting the ribbon back on.”

_“But they’re so cute!”_

 

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen  
** **Patching Things Up**

* * *

 

Peppered all throughout Vale, there exist vestiges of the original Kingdom. Some of these have been modernized as the capital expanded and grew, such as the storm drains attached to the sewer system, and the Emerald Tower of the original palace being converted to the CCT tower. More exist in a state of historical preservation. Maintained, yes, but remaining in a similar state as to when they were originally constructed. The walls of the first village, for example, which now surround the airfield from which the shuttles to Beacon can be taken (free to residents, and a visitor’s pass can be purchased from the connecting stands for tourists and other travellers).

Still others, however, have fallen to disrepair as society marches ever onward.

Modern maps listed it as Old Gillikin Road, since the post-Vytal expansion of the capital focused on the newer raised highways in and out of the downtown. Gillikin used to be the primary road to the northern gate, but as the city kept expanding and the gate was moved time and time again, the road took longer and longer to be built out to match. Eventually, the gate moved and a new road was built to connect it to the emerging suburbs, bypassing the original infrastructure by way of raised platforms and support beams.

Local traffic remains, and while Old Gillikin still services the communities for which it was built, it no longer receives the attention and funding it needs from the Council. It didn’t help matters that the commuters similarly moved further and further out, leaving the people who didn’t have the money or opportunity to follow suit.

It was a mostly-forgotten corner of the city. Due to the raised highways overhead, it literally existed in the shadow of the upper classes.

In a run-down building that used to be a barracks for the border guard, the Soleil Free Clinic provided a necessary service to the refugees, downtrodden, and the otherwise overlooked neighborhood along Old Gillikin. While healthcare was provided to all who needed it in Vale, getting to a hospital or a fully-stocked pharmacy was a matter of proper transportation, and that wasn’t always an easy option in this part of the city... or for the people who lived there. Understaffed, understocked, and woefully underfunded, the Soleil Clinic wasn’t the best option that these people had. It was merely the closest, and often the _only_ option.

Amber pushed the last crate onto the shelf, stacking it neatly with the rest of the supplies that she and her charges had brought. Antibiotics and other staple medications from the central hospital downtown, disposable gloves and sterile needles from the distribution center on the riverfront, Dust batteries and cables from the refinery by the docks – these were all things that the Clinic had trouble procuring at reasonable rates, with most of its budget going towards specialized medications and equipment.

“Alright, Morgan,” she said, turning back from the shelves. “That’s the last of what we brought. Was there anything else you needed while we were here?”

Doctor Morgan Soleil was not a tall man, standing roughly about Amber’s height, though the wild tufts of hair at the sides of his head gave him an extra few inches. The rest of his hair wore thin, leaving a large bald patch at the top of his head, and the wiry black strands were shot through with grey. He wore glasses attached to a strap, allowing them to hang from his neck when he wasn’t wearing them.

“Arrangements quite satisfactory,” he said as he checked off the labels of each crate on his clipboard. “Supplies should last through the winter. Barring plague, famine, other disaster.”

Though his dark skin was wrinkled and scarred from decades of experience, he still moved around the store room like a man half his age, darting back and forth along the shelves with the same frenetic pace of a caffeinated squirrel.

Amber stood aside and started to collapse the wagon they’d used to bring the supplies. “Good to know. I won’t be around for a while, and I know you’ve got the Vytal Festival to prepare for.”

Nora perked up at this. “D’you think there’ll be more people coming here for the Festival?”

“Possible,” said Dr. Soleil. “But unlikely.”

“Tourists avoid this area more often than not,” Amber added. “Most of the people staying in the hotels up north take the expressway back down to the city center.”

“Other doctors attend the Festival for medical purposes,” continued Dr. Soleil. “My purposes? More personal this year.”

He held up his scroll and showed a picture of a pair of girls in Atlas Academy whites. The girl on the left had curly red hair, a pale complexion, and freckles. The girl on the right, standing almost at full attention, had dark hair and features that matched Morgan’s.

“Is that your daughter?” Amber asked, leaning in to get a closer look.

Dr. Soleil seemed to swell up with pride. “Ciel. Top of her class. Was concerned that her name affected her entrance to the Academy, but Ironwood assured me she got in on her own merit.”

Jaune blinked. “You know General Ironwood?”

“Trained him! Wonderful soldier, good leader.” Dr. Soleil paused to take a sharp breath through his nose. “Bit of an asshole, though.”

Amber frowned. “I didn’t know you used to be a military doctor.”

“Atlas Special Forces. Retired. Still have clearance.” Dr. Soleil gestured for them to follow him out of the store room and led them back to his office. “Military life is grand, glorious. Very good opportunity for scientific career, many grants available to those who fall in line. But here, _here,_ the best opportunity for the most good. People whose lives are lived day to day, unseen, often unwanted. But lives, nonetheless. Atlas has hundreds of scientists who do my job. Here, Mantle, Vacuo? Not so much.”

As he talked, Amber watched the children’s faces. Nora and Ren nodded along with his words. Jaune smiled politely, though his expression was starting to glaze over. Pyrrha, however…

Pyrrha was enraptured, taking in everything she could. It was the same expression Amber had seen her take when facing off against Grimm in the forest; she was studying every detail, making sense of what she was learning in order to figure out how to use it best. It was an important skill, of course. It made her a dangerous opponent, and an effective teammate.

Most of all, however, it made her Amber’s best choice.

 

* * *

 

Weiss Schnee only had one father to compare against. This was a fact. Logically, she understood that not all fathers were like Jacques Schnee, and while she found it hard to envision, she had pretty much accepted it as given.

Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long had to come from _somewhere._ This was also a fact. The traits that they shared were clearly learned behavior, having been reinforced or tampered down by external influence over the course of their childhoods. Both of them had, by their own admission, at least one and a half positive masculine role models in their lives by which to compare, and at least one shared maternal figure for a much smaller portion.

All of this information should have prepared her to meet Taiyang Xiao Long. And yet…

_“Dad!”_

Weiss couldn’t stop herself from flinching as the red blur blew past her the moment the ferry dropped its ramp onto the pier. Ruby’s Semblance was familiar by now, but it still caught her off-guard every time. Even when she should have been expecting it.

The twitching of Blake’s bow – now that Weiss knew to look for it – told her that at least she wasn’t alone in feeling that way. It made her feel a little better.

“Whoa, hey, Ruby! Easy there!” Mr. Xiao Long protested, spinning around to try to dislodge Ruby from his back. Her legs went flying as she held on tight around his neck, and whatever rebuttal she might have made dissolved into laughter.

Yang pushed past Weiss, carrying all of their luggage together. “Come on, Ruby, you’ll throw his back out again.”

“Will not!” Ruby stuck her tongue out at her sister, who matched it with her own.

“Come on, girls, we’ve got guests,” said Mr. Xiao Long, gently lowering Ruby to the ground and grabbing a pair of duffel bags from Yang. He turned back to the others and grinned. “Weiss and Blake, right? The girls have told me all about you.”

Weiss dropped into a practiced curtsy. “I am honored to be your guest for the weekend, Mr. Xiao Long. Please let me know if I can be of any service during my stay.”

“Call me Tai,” he said, beaming. “‘Mr. Xiao Long’ is for my students or the tax man. We’re all Huntsmen here, and in my house, teammates are family.”

Weiss felt completely lost. There wasn’t anything in her etiquette training to cover this. She glanced at Yang for support.

Yang rolled her eyes. “It’s fine, Princess. You’ll get used to it.”

“...very well, Mr. Xiao— Tai,” Weiss corrected herself. “But my offer remains; it’s my responsibility as a guest of your household.”

Tai chuckled and led the way to the parking lot. “I’ll probably take you up on it later, then. But right now, you girls should get settled in. Ruby, Yang, did you have any specific plans for the evening?”

“Nothing solid,” said Yang. “We were going to play it by ear, see how it went.”

“Can we do a movie night?” asked Ruby, a hopeful gleam in her eye.

“Only if you clean up after yourselves,” said Tai. “Remember what happened last time?”

_“Daaaaaad.”_

Tai tossed the duffel bags lightly into the back of a slightly beat-up pickup truck, its blue paint starting to peel at the edges of the steel panels. “Don’t you ‘daaaad’ me, young lady. That’s been the rule ever since I had to reupholster the couch.”

They piled into the truck’s cabin, all managing to wedge into the seats with a minimum of discomfort. Ruby started bouncing in her seat impatiently. “We’ll be good, I promise!”

Blake leaned over to Yang. It wasn’t all that far to lean. “What did you do to the couch?”

Yang winced. “Okay look, in our defense, it was spaghetti sauce.”

Blake patted her on the shoulder sympathetically.

“That’s not a defense,” said Tai, who clearly overheard on the basis that the conversation was happening less than two feet away from him. “That’s what made it _worse._ ”

He started the truck’s engine and they were soon on their way to the house. The roads were simple and unpaved, marked mostly by the wear of tires over the years. This made the ride bumpier than Weiss was expecting, and the truck didn’t exactly _rattle_ as it hit particularly deep divots, but there wasn’t a word she’d replace it with if asked.

Ruby and Yang were unbothered by any of this, so Weiss didn’t say anything either. This was how they grew up, after all, and it must be familiar to come back to after the airships and asphalt of the city. Blake was likewise unphased by the trip, and Weiss tried to emulate her aura of casual interest and calm.

“So we’ll set up a movie night for tonight,” Tai was saying as he drove, “but what about the rest of the day?”

“Well, I was thinking about taking Weiss and Blake to go meet Mom,” said Ruby.

Both Tai and Yang went extremely quiet at those words. Weiss glanced between them, looking for some indication of how to react to it, but Ruby didn’t appear to notice.

“That’s… not a bad idea,” said Tai eventually. “It’s a nice day. You all packed your weapons, right?”

Ruby let out an overly dramatic sigh. “Yes, Dad.”

“You’ve got sunscreen on you? You know how fast you burn.”

“ _Yes,_ Dad.”

Yang leaned forward to catch Ruby’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

Ruby nodded. “Yeah. It feels right. I _want to._ ”

Yang stared at her for just a second longer, then nodded herself. “Alright, then. Weiss, Blake, you feel like a bit of hiking?”

Ruby turned to the others, her expression almost unreadable. She was looking at Weiss and Blake expectantly, waiting for an answer, but there were flashes of hope in her eyes. And behind those, a fragile vulnerability. Weiss’s answer would _mean something_ to Ruby.

_(bet on my mother’s grave)_

“Of course,” said Weiss. “I would be honored to come along.”

The relief flooding from Ruby was tangible, and Weiss almost missed Yang’s tiny nod of approval from behind her.

“Yeah, me too,” said Blake. “Do we need to bring anything?”

“Just your weapons,” Yang confirmed. “The Grimm in these woods aren’t as bad as by Beacon, but they’re still around.”

Tai pulled off the road to let them off. “Go ahead and grab what you need. I’ll bring the rest up to the girls’ room for when you get back. Stay near Yang, it’s easy to get turned around over here.”

“We’ll take good care of them,” said Yang, hopping out and stretching her arms.

Ruby kissed her dad on the forehead. “I’ll tell Mom you said hi. Love you!”

“Love you too. Be safe!”

 

* * *

 

The trek through the woods was relatively peaceful. There were no Grimm attacks, despite Yang’s warnings, but Blake kept an eye out for them anyway. One forest tended to be like any other, and the one thing she’d learned was that the moment she let her guard down, that was when the attack came.

It didn’t help that she was already on edge. Meeting Yang’s dad was fine, and he’d turned out to be pretty much what Blake had expected. Tall, blond, muscles. Just like his daughter.

(Ruby must have taken after their mother.)

Despite Taiyang being friendly and outgoing, though, Blake still felt uncomfortable. It would probably pass as she got used to him. That had happened with the other girls, if she was being honest with herself, and it was likely an aspect of herself that she’d have to deal with for a long time. Even still, it acted to heighten her senses during the walk, as she searched every shadow for a threat that her body kept insisting was coming.

It _very much_ didn’t help that Ruby was getting more and more agitated as they progressed. Despite her insistence that everything was fine, it was clear that the excursion was stressful for her. At least, it was clear to Blake. She had known her team leader for a few months now, and she was starting to recognize the signs.

First, Ruby had been talking excessively. To the outside observer, Ruby talking wasn’t a departure from her natural state of being, but there was a difference between her normal exuberance and what she did when she was nervous, which was to change the subject quickly and frequently, ask rhetorical questions and not wait for a response, and pepper the entire thing with simple observations of the world around her. She was talking to fill up space, to erase the silence that, to her, was deafening. In short, she _babbled._

Once they reached a steeper incline, Ruby fell silent altogether. It was unlike her, and Blake had only seen it a couple times prior. A quiet Ruby was worrisome, and were it not for the situation, Blake might have approached her to talk. One quick look from Yang stopped her, however.

It wasn’t until they reached the clearing at the top of the hill that Blake understood why.

The late-morning sun was still at their backs, not yet having reached its apex in the sky. The long shadows of the trees were still shrinking, pulling away from the cliffside that overlooked the sea between Vale and Vacuo, sandwiched as it was between the curve of the continent.

The grass was well-tended, not left to grow to its natural height like other clearings they’d passed. A small pathway of cobblestones led from the forest to the edge of the cliff, ending short of a limestone marker. This marker was their destination, Ruby leading the rest of them until she knelt softly beside it.

“Here we are,” she said, turning to look at them.

Blake approached the stone. It was beveled slightly towards them, with a large emblem engraved on its face. A solitary rose, its petals spread and intertwined. It was a symbol that she recognized; it adorned Ruby’s luggage, and served as a belt clasp for her scythe’s frame. Below the rose was a block of text, raised from a negative-space engraving.

 _Summer Rose  
_ _Thus Kindly I Scatter_

At a loss for anything relevant to say, Blake turned towards the ocean. “It’s a lovely view,” she offered after a moment.

“Mom always came up here to relax,” said Ruby. “After a mission, or a long day in town. It was her favorite place on the island.”

Weiss placed her hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “Thank you for showing it to us. I know this means a lot to you.”

Ruby grinned and pushed herself back to her feet. “Well, so do you guys.”

They stood there in silence for the next few minutes, enjoying the cool autumn breeze. Yang shared stories of their mother, with the occasional interjection from Ruby, who explained that she was just a bit too young to really remember much about her. Her comments started coming fewer and farther between after a while, and as Blake watched, she started to get more and more agitated. Bouncing on her feet, flexing her fingers, darting her gaze back and forth.

It didn’t take long for Yang to notice this herself. “Hey sis, why don’t I take them back to the house and start getting them settled in? You can catch up later.”

It was like she had flipped a switch in her little sister, the tension just dropped away. “Are you sure?” Ruby asked, though her tone broadcast that she was making the minimum required polite protest.

“Oh yeah, we probably need to make sure that Zwei hasn’t gotten into Blake’s bag.”

Blake blinked. “He what?”

“It’ll be fine, let’s just go check.”

Yang drew them out of the clearing and back down the path through the forest. The last thing they saw was Ruby turning back to the headstone.

 

* * *

 

Yang was a bit too quiet on the trek back to the house. So was Weiss, for that matter. It was somewhat concerning.

“Is she going to be alright?” Blake asked. It felt weird. She wasn’t used to starting conversations.

“Ruby?” Yang asked. She pressed on, not waiting for confirmation. “Yeah, she goes up there by herself all the time. It’s kind of her thing, really. Talking to Mom.”

“You don’t talk to your mother?” Weiss asked.

Yang stuck her hand out, palm facing downward, and waggled it back and forth. “Ehhh. It’s not really the same. I don’t usually have a lot to say. Ruby was really little when she left on her last mission, and it took her a long time to really understand what it meant.”

She turned back to stare along the path for a moment. “She didn’t take it really well, you know? She didn’t talk to _anyone_ for a few years.”

Weiss frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Ruby.”

“I know, right? These days it’s like she’s making up for lost time, but trust me, it was bad. She used to sneak out to the cliff and cry. We only found out because Uncle Qrow told us he was keeping Grimm away from her.”

“He didn’t take her back to the house?” Blake asked.

Yang shook her head. “Nope! Dad was _furious._ But he knew Ruby needed that, so he started taking her himself. She doesn’t feel comfortable talking to Mom with anyone there, though, so we always hung back while she did her thing.”

Blake and Weiss glanced at each other. That explained why Yang and her dad got so quiet.

“She didn’t seem so angry just now,” Weiss opined.

Yang shrugged. “Ruby’s had years to work stuff out. Now she just talks to her, tells her about her day, that sort of thing. It’s kind of hard to stay mad at your mom when she leaves to go save the world, y’know?”

“Your mom was a Huntress?”

“Both of them were,” said Yang.

Blake felt like she missed something. “Both?”

“Yeah, Ruby’s mom was, and so was mine.” Yang grinned at her. “That one’s a longer story, though, so let’s save that for later, okay? We’re here, and Dad doesn’t like me talking about her.”

 

* * *

 

Ruby showed up at the house not too long after the rest of the girls did. Benefits of a superspeed Semblance, really. She was a lot more relaxed than she’d been before the trip up to the cliffside, which meant _chipper._ Which meant a loud, rapid-fire tour.

The girls decided to stay all together in one room, the way they’d gotten used to back at school. Once the air mattresses were set up and bags put away, it was time to see the Guest Room (currently empty). And the door to Uncle Qrow’s room (nobody was allowed inside). And then the kitchen, the living room, the storage room, the armory… it was amazing how much fit inside what outside looked like a simple log cabin at the edge of the woods.

Despite how unsettled Blake was at somber Ruby, she still could only take so much of chipper. Once Ruby was distracted showing off her video game collection, Blake took the opportunity to head outside for a breath of fresh air.

Thankfully, if there was one thing Patch had, it was fresh air. The Xiao Long household was situated at the edge of the forest, connected to the rest of the island by the rough dirt road they’d taken from the docks. There was a fence, which seemed to be more of a formality than anything else; it stretched only to the edge of the forest and no further, marking what was on the property and what wasn’t.

Taiyang’s truck sat in the driveway, the girls’ bags long since removed from the back.

Off to the side was a small woodshed, its open door displaying a metal workbench, tools hanging from pegs on the wall, and what appeared to be a motorcycle under a large protective tarp.

Blake sat down on the porch and took a deep breath, letting it out in one slow, calming exhale.

“Needed a break?”

Yang’s dad came out from behind the woodshed. He had a cardboard box in his arms, which he shifted around to his side as he spoke.

“I’m fine,” said Blake automatically. She stopped and tried again. “I’m… it’s alright, it’s just very loud inside right now.”

Taiyang chuckled. “Don’t I know it. Why do you think I’m out here?”

“I’m sorry if we’re a burden,” said Blake, ducking her head.

“What? Oh, no, no, that’s not what I meant.” Tai held out his free hand defensively. “I’m thrilled you girls are here for the weekend. No, raising two teenaged daughters taught me that I should take the time to find some quiet when I can.”

“Oh.” Blake considered this. “That makes sense, I guess.”

Tai looked her over for a moment, as if sizing her up. Then he glanced down at the box he was carrying. He nodded, as if he had just made a decision. “Hey, as long as you’re out here, why don’t you give me a hand? I was going to get some gardening done before dinner gets here.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in the way…”

Tai grinned. “Nonsense. It’ll go faster with two. Come on back, I’ll show you what needs to be done.”

She followed him around to the back of the house. Just as he’d said, there was a vegetable garden stretching out for a few rows, separated by a walkway. Against the wall of the house were a pair of flower boxes, filled with towering sunflowers that stretched up to and past the windowsills.

“Here, put these on.”

Blake reached out and caught what Tai had just tossed to her. They were a pair of gloves, made of a type of leather she didn’t quite recognize with a heavy canvas armguard. They were light but strong, and they smelled of goats and dirt.

“Ruby’s probably wouldn’t fit you,” Tai explained as he held up his own gloves, “and I’m already wearing mine.”

Blake looked closer. Sure enough, the leather was embossed with a familiar orange sigil, that of a heart made of pure fire. She put the gloves on and clenched her fists, feeling the leather fold under her fingers. After a moment she tapped her fists together and grinned.

Tai laughed. “Okay, let’s get started. You know how to weed a garden?”

Blake nodded. “My mother keeps flowers. She used to have me help her when I was little.”

“Perfect. Same thing here, then. You take the left, I’ll take the right, and we’ll meet in the middle?”

The work was simple but satisfying. With every pull of a weed, Blake felt her tensions fade away. It didn’t take them long to work their way through the rows of vegetables, and they quickly moved on to the sunflowers.

The window boxes, as it turned out, were built up from the soil level, and actually extended deeper into the ground itself.

“There’s no bottom,” Tai explained when he noticed Blake looking. “Sunflowers need soil depth, but we also liked the look of the window boxes.” He scratched the back of his head, grinning widely. “It means I have to keep an eye on erosion and refill the soil when I need to, but it’s worth it, don’t you think?”

“They’re lovely,” said Blake, unsure of what else to say.

Tai nodded. “It was Yang’s idea, actually. They’re her favorites.”

Blake nodded. Bright, cheerful, physically intimidating. That made a lot of sense.

They’d cleared half of the window boxes when Tai spoke up again. “Ruby said you didn’t have plans to go back home during break,” he said, his voice carefully neutral.

Blake winced. “Is that all she said?”

“More or less.” He pulled his gloves off and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I know my daughters a lot better than they think I do, though, and I know there was a lot more that she wasn’t saying.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Blake lied.

Tai held his hands up again. “Easy. If you don’t want to share, I’m not going to ask, that’s fine.” He glanced off towards the setting sun, as if he was searching for something in the afternoon sky. “Trust me, I know that sometimes you need to keep things close to the chest for a while. That’s a concept I’m very familiar with.”

Blake let herself relax. She hadn’t noticed tensing up.

“I said before, we’re all Huntsmen here,” Tai continued. “Working in a team, that’s a rough bit of soul searching, you know? All of a sudden you’ve got three new people that you need to learn to trust. But they’re watching out for you, just as much as you’re watching out for them. Whatever you’ve got going on, whatever secrets they’re keeping for you, they’re doing it because they think it’s the right thing to do.”

She kept silent.

“And if you need anything, you can always come by, alright? This house is always open to you.”

“I… okay,” she said, trying to find the right words in response. “Thank you.”

They weren’t the right words. She wasn’t certain there _were_ right words. He had to know what he was offering, right? Extending hospitality unconditionally meant that he was offering refuge and safe haven, in any situation. There were only a few situations where she’d be in a position to take him up on that, and those kinds of situations always ended poorly for everyone involved.

_If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to._

He _had_ to know. Didn’t he?

Taiyang Xiao Long’s face was hard to read, and that surprised her more than anything else. As much as Yang clearly took after him, she was an open book compared to him. All he showed were warm blue eyes and a soft smile.

“I appreciate it,” she added, carefully.

Tai hesitated. He stared at her expectantly, but she had no idea what he was looking for. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the sunflowers. “Anyway, just keep it in mind.”

“I will.”

He nodded again, then gestured towards the house. “They’re probably getting ready to order dinner,” he said, pointedly. “I told the girls no pizza, but they never listen. Better go make sure they get something you can eat.”

Blake removed her borrowed gardening gloves and handed them back with a smile. Then, with an awkward glance back, she went back to the house, her head filled with more questions than answers.

 

* * *

 

The entire flight back to Beacon, Amber felt uneasy. It wasn’t the flight itself; there was no turbulence, the winds barely buffeted the airship around. Her turmoil was in her own head, bouncing back and forth between her ears. A constant reminder of her struggle with her power, one that plagued her ever since that attack in the countryside outside the Kingdom.

_The Arbiter lies dormant._

There were times Amber hated being the Fall Maiden. She hated the secrecy, hated the expectations, hated the very nature of her power. She was someone who prized her own agency in the world, and it felt like that was gradually being taken away from her.

She had a choice, of course. It just wasn’t a great one. She could choose to turn away from Beacon and take her chances on the open road, where the assassins found her and could easily track her down again. She could choose to go further into hiding, and never affect positive change in the world, never use her power to help those who needed it.

It wasn’t a choice at all.

The Bullhead set down at the airpad outside Beacon, and team JNPR hopped out the moment the doors opened. They stayed to help Amber step out onto the tarmac and started to lead the way back to the amphitheatre where they initially gathered.

“I’ve got it from here,” she said, waving them off as she’d done team RWBY the week before. “Go on, get ready for break, I know you need to.”

“Pyrrha’s the only one leaving,” Nora replied. “The rest of us were going to be townies for the week!”

“I was invited to a tournament at Sanctum Academy,” said Pyrrha, her tone apologetic. “The former champion handing off the trophy to the new one. It’s a tradition.”

“Can I go with you next year?” Jaune asked.

“I… yes, of course!” Pyrrha exclaimed. Her cheeks flushed as bright as her hair. She took a quick breath to center herself. “Why do you ask?”

“My sister’s moving to Argus for work next month, and she said I’ve got a standing invitation to stay with her.” Jaune grinned, seemingly oblivious to Pyrrha’s reaction. “Buuuut it’s not ready yet, so this year won’t be good.”

“Which sister is this again?” Amber asked, genuinely curious. Jaune always enjoyed talking about his family.

“Saphron. She and I always wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible.” He glanced over at his teammates. When his gaze passed over Ren and Nora, he paled. “Uh, not because of any issues at home, just. Large family, you know. She and I are the youngest, and we never got any privacy.”

Ren raised an eyebrow. Nora simply crossed her arms and smirked at him.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” said Pyrrha. “It’s a lovely city, especially this time of year.”

They turned towards the dorms. “Work, huh?” said Nora, slipping her hands behind her head and lacing her fingers. “I thought you said Saphron was an artist.”

“Is she still seeing that CCT technician?” asked Ren. “Doesn’t _she_ live in Argus?”

“I’m shocked, _shocked,_ that you think an Arc would be underhanded about anything…”

Amber hesitated. This was the time, if she was going to reach out and try to advance Ozpin’s plans. This was the perfect time to do it. This was the _only_ time to do it.

She could let them go right now, walk out of their lives and never have to worry about them again. She could avoid everything _right now_ and they’d be safe.

All she had to do was leave.

“Pyrrha?” she called.

Pyrrha turned, her ponytail whipping around her, catching the last rays of the setting sun. “Yes?”

“Would you stay behind for a moment? I wanted to talk to you.”

There it was. The last bit of her own agency slipping away, just as she knew it would. The culmination of events that had set into motion ever since that woman siphoned off a portion of her soul. Amber could have chosen to avoid this direction, but it would have sacrificed everything else that she was to do so. She couldn’t run and hide, and she couldn’t leave the world without a Fall Maiden.

It was no choice at all.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Even in a situation that had been decided for her, she still had power. She still had the ability to affect her own choices. Ozpin wanted her to choose one of the children, but the choice was still Amber’s to make. Maybe the same was true of the rest of it, too; if she had to do this, she’d at least be able to do it _her_ way.

The rest of Pyrrha’s team continued on without her, while the girl herself approached Amber. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Amber. “I just wanted to talk to you. You know how I said this was the end of the internship for now?”

Pyrrha nodded. “We’ve learned a lot from you. Thank you for the opportunity.”

Amber started walking towards the fountain in the center of the quad. “Well, what if there was more to the internship?”

Pyrrha slowed her steps. “What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes narrowed and her shoulders squared ever so slightly.

Amber lowered her hood and stared up at the fountain. “Things in my life are changing, and I can’t have two teams of students around me every week. But I can have one person, an assistant, if you will.”

“And you’re offering that to me?”

“I wanted to give you the opportunity,” Amber clarified. “The choice would remain yours.”

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. “Did you plan on asking any of the others this?”

“I considered them,” Amber admitted. “You seemed the best fit.”

“I’d… have to think about it.”

“I’d be upset if you didn’t. It’s a big deal, and it would pull you away from your schoolwork even more than every other Friday.” Amber shrugged. “It might even interfere with your planning for the Vytal Tournament, so it only makes sense that you’d think about it and get back to me later.”

Pyrrha nodded. “What can you tell me about this opportunity now?”

“Quite a lot. But first, I had a question for you.”

“Oh?”

Amber sat down at the edge of the fountain. She patted the stones next to her in an invitation for Pyrrha to join her.

“Tell me, Pyrrha,” she said. “What’s your favorite fairy tale?”

 

* * *

 

Weiss was uncharacteristically quiet as they prepared for bed.

She and Blake had wordlessly chosen the air mattresses that were most like their living situations at Beacon; Blake setting up on the one nearest Yang, and Weiss over in the corner by Ruby’s bed. Weiss had been apprehensive about them, but they were surprisingly comfortable for rectangular rubber balloons.

The sisters were still downstairs, cleaning up after the party and refusing any help. “You guys are the guests,” Ruby had said, waving them upstairs. “Go on, we’ll have a slumber party!”

Weiss glanced over to where Blake was sitting up, reading in the light of the table lamp. Her bow was off, just as it had been in the dorm the evening before. Now that Weiss was looking, she could see the way the fur of her ears blended in with the girl’s hair, and how they twitched occasionally with each creak of the floorboards or soft muffled voice from downstairs.

Now that Weiss was looking, she couldn’t even imagine how she’d missed them the entire time.

Blake looked up, her eyes flashing with annoyance. “What is it?”

“They suit you,” Weiss said after a moment.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your ears. They’re part of who you are. Thank you for trusting me with them.” Weiss laid back down to go to sleep. “Not… trusting me with your ears. Knowing about them. With the secret. I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” said Blake, before Weiss backpedaled any farther. She turned back to her book.

Weiss sighed and turned over, pulling the blanket over her as she did. She’d said what she needed to say.

“...I don’t hate you, you know.”

Weiss sat back up. “What?”

Blake set her book down and turned to face her. “I thought I did. For weeks after we met. I thought this was it, everything I fought against when I thought I was fighting for freedom, and the moment I tried to leave, there you were.”

“Oh.” Weiss couldn’t help but cringe at that description. “What changed?”

“You did. Or rather, you weren’t what I thought you were. And you tried. You’re still trying.” Blake chuckled. “Sometimes you’re _very_ trying.”

“Thank you.”

“But still,” Blake continued. “You’re making the effort. So, I don’t hate you. It’s going to take some time to work out what I do think, but… I’m willing to try.”

“Really?”

Blake nodded. “We’re Huntresses. That means we’re family. Arguments and all.”

Weiss wiped away a tear. “I… yeah. Yeah. We’re family.”

She sighed and shook her head. “All this time, I thought that I’d be—”

The door slammed open, and three blurs rushed into the room. Two large, yellow and red, heading straight for the beds. The third blur was much smaller and made a beeline for Weiss, tackling her back down to the mattress and smothering her with wet doggy kisses.

“Zwei! Down!” Ruby shouted. “I’m sorry Weiss, he was so good all day, but now he thinks it’s playtime! Zwei!”

Blake had retreated as far back against the wall as she could. “Is he going to be sleeping in here with us?”

“He usually sleeps in Dad’s room,” said Yang. “But he always comes and gives us good night kisses because he’s _such a good boy isn’t he?_ ”

“Just push him down if he’s being bad,” added Ruby. “He knows better than to jump up on guests.”

Weiss reluctantly pushed the corgi away from her face. He snuffled contentedly as he hopped back down and headed for Ruby’s bed.

Family. She could imagine worse. Sometimes, when it was dark and she knew nobody was watching, she found that she could imagine _much_ worse, and far easily than she was comfortable with. But this one, the one she was slowly making for herself? She found she could live with it.

_“Zwei, no, Blake is not a chew toy!”_

 

* * *

 

Yatsuhashi pushed the door open with his backside, carrying a large crate. “Mail for you, Velvet!”

Velvet sat up, her term paper all but forgotten. “I’m not expecting anything,” she said.

“Well, it’s got your name on it. It’s heavy, too, let me just put it by the–-augh!”

He stumbled, just barely catching his footing before he fell. “How many times am I going to slip on that thing before you put it away?”

“Be nice,” said Coco. “You leave your shirts in the corner where anyone can trip on them, too.”

Velvet darted in and grabbed Fox’s binder from where it had fallen on the floor and nearly toppled Yatsuhashi. “I think it’s my fault, I bumped into his chair earlier. Path is clear!”

Yatsuhashi dropped the crate with a loud _thunk._ “Well, there you go. One package from the SDC, addressed to you.”

“Oh, it’s from Weiss!” Velvet grabbed the letter that was attached to the top. “She says it’s a thank you for the talk last week.”

“What did you say to her, anyway?” mused Coco, eyeing the crate with suspicion. “Because that looks like a _lot_ of ‘thank you’.”

“Nothing that she wasn’t ready to hear on her own,” said Velvet. She carefully folded the letter back up and went to unlatch the crate.

Rows upon rows of cyan Dust crystals gleamed back at her. Of all the Dust varieties, this one was the hardest to come by, and therefore the most expensive. Hard Light Dust, straight from Atlas.

“Seriously, girl, what did you _say_ to her?” Coco repeated.

“And how did she know about this?” Yatsuhashi added.

“I have no idea.”

“You can use all of this, right?”

Velvet grinned.

 

* * *

**World of Remnant**  
**Argus**

Before the Great War, colonists from Mantle travelled far across Remnant to establish outposts on every continent. Many of them folded in the lead-up to the War, and most of the rest were folded back into the Kingdoms closest to them.

The city of Argus, however, became a joint venture between Mantle and Mistral. Operating under the oversight of the Mistral government, but defended land, air, and sea by the might of Mantle’s military strength, Argus prospered as a trading port between the two Kingdoms. From Mantle came technology and innovation, and from Mistral came art and agriculture. Even after Mantle moved their capital and took the name Atlas, after their Huntsman Academy, collaboration between the two continental superpowers continued to thrive.

Argus is home to many crowning achievements of both Kingdoms, as well. Sanctum Academy, the combat school that feeds primarily into Haven, has its campus within the secure border walls of Argus. Just outside the city exists one of the primary CCT relay towers, boosting the connection between the central towers in each capital. These, too, are protected by the soldiers and technology of Atlas.

Still, just as each Kingdom has a stake in the city culturally, so too does the population. Atlesian citizens often feel uncomfortable with the lax Mistral government oversight – lax, at least, by Atlas standards. So too does the Mistrali population resent the growing power of the on-site military base, as the soldiers stationed there submit only to Atlas’s will.

The peace between the Kingdoms persists, and thus the city of Argus prospers. But the tensions of the city remain, and are not so easily dismissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s one of those single-bench-all-the-way-across trucks. You can fit a lot more people in one of those than you think, and that’s not even counting weird anime physics and vaguely magical technological advances.


	15. Best. Day. Ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attempting to get a better understanding of how to properly tag this fic.

Start small.

That had been the plan, Blake reminded herself. Being a Huntress and leaving her troubles in her past was the goal, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight. The way to do it was to work on one problem at a time. Once she solved that problem, she could work on the next, and then the next, until she was well on her way.

What was her goal as a Huntress? Ideally, the same as her goal in the White Fang. To help people, especially faunus communities who might not have access to a Huntsman or Kingdom resources. As a Huntress, she’d have the freedom to move between Kingdoms, without pledging loyalty or citizenship to any single one of them.

The main difference was that Huntsmen were legitimate operatives, with an official (if someone vague and ill-defined) place in society. Her words would carry weight, backed up by her training and her deeds.

Start small. One problem at a time.

She had a number of contacts all over the world. Former and current White Fang associates who she might still be on good terms with. If she reached out to those, she might be able to build up a rapport with them, regain some trust. It would help to have a network already in place when she set out, something she could start forming into… into _something._ She wasn’t sure yet. That was a big problem. It was a problem for later.

The small problem was lying on the table in front of her.

“Hey,” said Yang, sliding into the seat next to her. “What’cha staring at?”

Blake picked up her open scroll idly swiped through her contacts list. “It’s nothing.”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t touched your breakfast. Like, at all. Are you sure it’s nothing?”

“Yes.” Blake closed her scroll and stuffed it in a pocket, where it absolutely, positively, one hundred percent wouldn’t continue to eat away at her thoughts, needling her in the back of her mind until it became unbearable.

...damn it.

“...no,” she admitted. “It’s going to sound silly, though.”

“This morning I caught Ruby upside-down in Weiss’s closet,” said Yang immediately. “She said it was crucial planning for war.”

Blake blinked. “...what?”

“Just keeping the silliness in perspective. If you don’t want to talk about it, though, I’ll leave you alone…”

“No, it’s fine.” Blake sighed. She pulled her scroll back out and opened her contacts back up. “Over break, I had a talk with your dad. Well, I mean, he had a talk with _me,_ but still.”

Yang nodded. “He does that.”

“Well, it made me start thinking about the people I left back in the—” Blake glanced around the cafeteria, checking to see who was around. “—the people I left behind. There were some good people who were mixed in with them, same as I was. We all thought we were doing the right thing.” She stopped scrolling through her contacts. “I haven’t seen or heard from them since I left.”

“You’re thinking of getting back in touch with them?”

“I don’t know,” Blake admitted. “I’d like to, but I’m… worried about how they think of me.”

Yang shrugged. “Don’t be.”

Blake glared at her. “Yes, because it’s _just that easy._ ”

“No, it’s not, but my point is that there’s not much you can do about it. Either they want to talk to you or they don’t, and there’s only one way to find that out.” Yang reached over and grabbed an apple from Blake’s tray. “In the meantime, you gotta eat something. Can’t make a decision like that on an empty stomach, right?”

Blake grabbed the apple back. “...right.”

“You can’t do anything on an empty stomach!” said Ruby loudly, announcing her presence suddenly at the table. “I don’t know what you two were talking about, but that’s just good advice for pretty much _everything._ ”

“What’cha got there, Ruby?” asked Yang, staring at the large binder in her sister’s hands.

Blake took the opportunity to close her scroll back up and pocket it once more, thankful for the sudden distraction.

“This here?” asked Ruby coyly. “Oh, nothing much. Not until all of us are here. Where’s Weiss?”

“Still upstairs,” said Yang. “She wanted to take her time this morning since classes don’t start back up until tomorrow.”

“Great! Be right back!” Ruby and her comically oversized binder disappeared in a burst of red and a flurry of rose petals.

Blake raised an eyebrow and turned to Yang, the question frozen on her lips.

Yang shook her head and held up her hand, counting down on her fingers. Three, two, one…

There was another burst of petals. Ruby stood once more at the head of the table, grinning triumphantly. She had her arm out, reaching out to steady Weiss, who was still in her pajamas, with a toothbrush hanging delicately out of her mouth.

“Alright, we’re all here!”

Weiss blinked. “ _Ruby!_ I’m not _dressed!_ ”

Ruby shook her head. “You can get changed later. This is _important._ ”

Weiss sat down at the table, her silky blue pajamas only slightly undercutting her expression of murderous rage.

“Fantastic,” said Ruby, pointedly ignoring this. “So. Ladies. It’s come to my attention that our second semester is starting tomorrow. As such, it is my solemn duty as team leader—”

“We know classes start tomorrow,” said Yang. “I literally just said it a minute ago.”

“— _my solemn duty as team leader,_ ” Ruby continued, pushing past the interruption, “to ensure that our last day of break is one of adventure. One of togetherness. One of mystery and suspense and altogether awesomeness.”

She dropped the binder onto the table with a loud _thump,_ the force splintering the wood. It was a _good_ binder, with color-coded tabs, a table of contents, and what appeared to be a professionally designed cover.

Ruby opened it to the first tab. “It is my pleasure to unveil today’s plans. It is a day that will live on in infamy!”

“Can I go back to bed?” asked Weiss, holding up her toothbrush.

“No. But that won’t matter anyway.” Ruby grinned. “Today is going to be _so much fun._ ”

 

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen  
** **Best. Day. Ever.**

* * *

 

“I’ve figured out what your problem is,” said Torchwick. He leaned forward onto his cane, standing in the rapidly growing empty space in the Blue Mantle Ice Cream Company’s abandoned warehouse.

All around him, the hired grunts from the White Fang continued to pull crates of Dust from their stacks, loading up various trucks, vans, and the occasional shuttlecraft through the open doors of the loading dock. They came in shifts, each truck with a different marking and registration, to prevent discovery of one load from crashing the hammer of Vale’s law enforcement down onto the entire operation. Thus far, it was working.

Mercury paused in his morning pushups. “Only problem I have right now is you, pal,” he grunted, shifting his weight onto his right hand. He took a moment to fold his left arm behind his back, then continued his next set one-handed.

Torchwick let out a single derisive laugh. “Ha! Oh, if only you were so lucky. See, I’ve been looking through your original plans, and what I see is incredibly lacking.”

“Where’d you get our—?”

“I’m a professional, twinkle-toes. You people _hired me_ for this. Frankly, I’d be insulted if it wasn’t for the fact that you clearly still need me.”

Mercury groaned and swapped hands. “I need you to go _away._ ”

Torchwick shook his head. “My warehouse, my rules. And since your lovely boss has decided to send my best assistant out to meet with one of her flunkies, I have to make do with one of hers.”

Three more reps and Mercury could switch to something else. He was counting them very carefully. “So go bother Emerald. I’m busy.”

“I am. She’s standing right next to you.”

Emerald, who in fact _had_ been standing there the entire time, clucked her tongue in annoyance and dropped her fingers from her temple. “How long have you known I was standing there?”

Torchwick slid his gaze over from Mercury’s other side, where he’d apparently been expecting her to appear. “That’s not important, kiddo. What _is_ important is that you’re both here, so we’re going to have a little lesson in Heist 101. Come along, last one there has to stay behind to clean the chalkboard.”

With that, he turned and walked over to the alcove they’d set up as an office.

Mercury sighed and pushed himself up to his feet. “You ever wonder why we’re even here, sometimes?”

“Here as in Vale? Babysitting the con artist while Cinder goes and has a chat with the White Fang? Because she explained that pretty well.”

“No, I mean like, at all.”

“Ah, that. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.” Emerald nodded towards the office. “Might as well humor him, though, or he’ll be insufferable all day.

“He’s insufferable _now._ ”

“Right. So imagine how much worse it will be.”

Mercury shuddered. “Point taken. Alright, let’s go play along.”

They reached the office, which was mostly left as-is from when this warehouse was active. No walls; apparently the owners had believed in an open floor plan, open door policy. The desks and furniture were equally unchanged, still sporting the logo of the ice cream manufacturer emblazoned on every surface possible.

Only a few of those logos were visible, however. Blueprints and other papers covered just about every square inch of real estate in the office. Photos of the Fall Maiden, printed out from Emerald’s scroll, were plastered against one of the walls, connected by bits of colored string tied around the pins. Maps of Vale, both the city and the Kingdom, lay open on the table, areas circled and marked and crossed off.

Torchwick spread his arms wide. “Perfect, you made it. Let’s go over the basics.”

“It’s such a nice day,” said Mercury. “Can we have class outside?”

Emerald whacked him in the shoulder. “So what’s our problem?” she asked Torchwick.

“Well, for starters, you keep giving me straight lines like that,” said Torchwick. He chuckled, then turned back to the wall. “You’ve got skills. And you’ve got vision, I won’t deny that. Kind of a weird long game, but I don’t pretend to understand the why so long as you keep paying me.”

Mercury started miming Torchwick’s actions behind his back, scrunching his face up in an exaggerated manner.

Emerald rolled her eyes at him, trying to get him to stop, but the corners of her mouth kept twitching upwards.

“You’ve got the right idea, putting your focus on the end goal. But you haven’t accounted for the most important thing.” Torchwick turned around, and Mercury immediately snapped back to his disinterested slouch.

“What’s that, Teach?” Mercury said. “Is it hats? Tell me it’s hats.”

Torchwick reached up and touched his own hat. “No, you tasteless cretin. You have to account for _failure._ ”

Mercury blinked. “Failure isn’t an option. Cinder was _very clear_ about that.”

“And where has that led you? Hiding out in the freezer section for the last few months.” Torchwick raised his hand and held out four fingers. “You need to know the _basics,_ kid. That’s what separates the small-time crooks from the masters.”

He ticked off one finger. “First, you make the plan. What are your goals, what are your needs? Organize, organize, organize.”

The second finger went down. “Then, you execute the plan. Step one, step two. You find your target, you make your move.”

“Sounds good so far,” said Mercury. “What’s the big deal, then?”

“Because no plan survives contact with the enemy!” Down went finger number three. “ _Expect the plan to go off the rails._ Nine times out of ten, it will. Either you’ve got a fresh new detective on the force with a shiny badge and something to prove, a bunch of meddling kids who think they’re Huntsmen, or a flunkie with delusions of grandeur who wants to do something his own way. _Something_ is going to happen to knock your plans to kingdom come, so you might as well be ready for it.”

Emerald frowned. “How are we supposed to plan for that?”

Torchwick threw his hands up in the air. “Who knows? That depends on what you’re doing. That’s why you need to have a bunch of side hustles going on, because if one thing falls apart, you can just drop it and move to the next.” He lowered his last finger. “You throw away the plan, and you pick up something new.”

Mercury shook his head. “You’re full of it.”

“Am I?” Torchwick shook his head, letting out a rueful chuckle. He took a few steps away, then suddenly whirled on his heel and whipped his cane up to point directly in Mercury’s face. “Alright, pop quiz: what happened at the docks during the last shipment?”

“A bunch of kids came and wrecked your shit,” said Mercury, unimpressed. He reached out with one finger and pushed the cane to the side.

“The police came to arrest a bunch of White Fang terrorists,” Torchwick corrected. “Whereas the Dust came back with us. Because the initial plan failed, and we had a fallback. You want to know what would have happened if we lost the Dust?”

Mercury blinked. He hadn’t considered that. “We wouldn’t be moving to Phase Two?”

Torchwick made a noise like a buzzer. “Ehhhhh! Wrong! We’d have a completely different shipment of Dust coming in by rail from Vacuo the next day. Your buddy Taurus was in position all week, waiting for that one. Meanwhile, _I’d_ be momentarily inconvenienced, and the rest of _you_ would still be sitting pretty on a pile of Dust.”

“You’d have been arrested,” said Emerald.

“You know why Neo and I don’t go on missions together?” Torchwick moved over to the table and tapped his cane on the map of the city. “Because cops mean red tape, and while they’re twiddling their thumbs trying to figure out how to get me a lawyer and what crimes they can get me to confess to, she’s already on her way to bust me out.”

Emerald raised an eyebrow. “And how many times has she needed to do that?”

Torchwick tapped his cane on the ground and leaned forward, letting his weight rest on it. “The important part is that it works.”

Mercury shook his head. He had to admit, though, it was a good point. Ever since they’d made their first assault on the Fall Maiden, the three of them – Mercury, Emerald, and the deteriorating Cinder – had played catch-up. They’d put all their eggs into one basket, and when that failed…

“Make your plans,” said Torchwick, as if he was responding directly to Mercury’s thoughts. “Make your backup plans. But always – _always_ – have an ace in the hole stashed away somewhere. There’s a sucker born every minute, after all.”

He twirled his cane once, twice, three times around himself, then smacked the tip right down on the map, the tip resting on Beacon Academy.

“Just make sure that it won’t be you.”

 

* * *

 

The sun burned bright in the sky, raising ever higher above the courtyard at Beacon. A crisp autumn breeze rustled through the trees, dislodging the changing leaves which had dried out for the season and scattering them across the field.

A woman stood in the quad, the sun at her back, stretching her shadow towards the Emerald Tower. The light framed her from behind, creating a darkened silhouette against the sky, her hooded cloak fluttering in the breeze.

She had cornered her prey. There, before the light of Oz and the world, she would get the justice she sought.

“You’re surrounded,” she called out, projecting her voice to be heard across the quad. “Come along quietly and this will be all over.

The breeze played across her Aura, which crackled with gathered power, shedding bits in the form of rose petals, scattering to the winds.

Her opponent was tall and lanky, his bangs blowing across his face. He squinted into the rising sun. “You’ll never take me alive!”

“So be it, then.” She slowly reached down to her side, watching him carefully as he did the same, their hands ready to move at a moment’s notice, each waiting for the other to break.

A gust of wind blew fallen leaves across their path, breaking eye contact for just a split second. It was long enough for him to grab the pistol slung low on his hip and fire.

A stream of water coursed out and splashed into the place where Ruby had just been standing, spraying through an outline of rose petals. She pushed up from the rolling crouch and pulled her own water pistols from her belt. One in each hand, she squeezed the triggers and charged Jaune’s position.

Ruby expected Jaune to follow suit and charge towards her. Instead, he fell back, zigzagging across the courtyard to the grass field opposite the fountain. It wasn’t until he crossed through the columns surrounding the fountain square that she realized her mistake.

Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora all burst out from their hiding places behind the columns, weaponry in hand. Like her, Ren carried twin water pistols, which he aimed in her direction.

Pyrrha circled around behind her; she’d apparently ransacked the poolhouse for a kneeboard, which she had strapped to her left arm as a waterproof shield. She raised a cut-down pool noodle in direct challenge, the neon pink clashing against her hair.

Nora had taken a bit more time to prepare, cobbling together a handheld heavy slingshot out of PVC pipe. Attached to it was a hopper full of brightly colored water balloons, releasing them one at a time into the slingshot in a gravity feed. She grinned and started firing balloons into the air.

“It’s an ambush!” Ruby yelled, darting to the side before she went down in a blaze of hydration.

Yang, Blake, and Weiss erupted out from behind the fountain, each sporting water guns of their own. They raced to grant Ruby some cover, each selecting a target and singling them out.

Blake’s stream of water from her pump-action soaker sprayed against Pyrrha’s shield, the droplets misting into a rainbow in the sunlight. She grinned and dodged the counterattack, the pool noodle passing harmlessly through the shadow clone as it dissipated.

Weiss skated circles around Ren, drawing his fire away from Ruby. She had chosen only a small water pistol, saying that it was the “more elegant choice”. It kept Ren on his toes, as he continually spun to keep her in his sights.

Yang charged forward after Nora, two messenger bags crossed over her torso. Each of these was filled to the brim with water balloons, which she continually reached into and tossed with a reckless abandon.

This left Ruby free to pursue Jaune. He had circled around to try to flank her, but she zipped over to him in a burst of red and leveled her pistols at him at point-blank range.

“The jig is up, criminal scum!” she crowed, the wind blowing her cloak dramatically. “I, Redd Ryder, the Sheriff, am taking you down!”

Jaune grinned. “Oh, but I know something you don’t! And until I tell you, you won’t shoot me.”

Ruby tilted her head, considering this. Then, she shot him.

Jaune sputtered as the two streams of water splashed in his face. “Augh! I said, as long as I have this information, you won’t shoot m—”

She shot him again.

“You _won’t shoot me_ —augh bleagh Ruby stop shooting me and let me tell you why you won’t shoot me!”

“Alright, fine, I’ll play your game.” Ruby lowered her guns. “What do you know that I don’t?”

Jaune took a moment to wipe his face dry. His hair was dripping wet, which ruined the look, but he rallied magnificently. “Simple. It’s… wait, hang on.”

He pulled his scroll out to check the time. Ruby twitched her guns back up.

“What I know that you don’t is – five, four, three – the sprinkler schedules!”

On cue, the sprinkler heads poked out of the grass. Ruby glanced down, the dread pooling in her stomach. As she feared, the one that popped up between her and Jaune was pointed in her direction.

“The tables have turned, Redd Ryder!” Jaune shouted triumphantly. “Tremble before the very might of the hey where are you going?”

Ruby dropped her guns and jumped back, the sudden rush of water drenching her cloak before she managed to phase into superspeed and avoid the rest.

Jaune reached down and picked up her guns as she popped back into form behind another sprinkler head further away. “Running away? And you’ve disarmed yourself, too. It’s only a matter of time before I catch you.”

Ruby grinned and reached behind her to her secret weapon. She’d been planning this day for weeks, which meant she had time to _prepare._ Time she could spend in the machine shops of Beacon, carefully crafting a weapon to surpass Crescent Rose.

It was a light frame, built of reinforced plastics. There were no actuators, no electronics, and no automated gears… but that only meant that she’d need to unlimber and unfold the device herself. Out came the barrel, snapping easily into place along a rubber gasket. Out popped the nozzle, held in place by mere bevels.

Jaune gaped. “That’s not fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Ruby retorted. “Guess which one this is.” With that, she kicked the top off the sprinkler and dropped the input nozzle of her fully functional high-pressure water cannon directly into Beacon’s water main, sighted along the barrel, and let loose her fury.

“That is _so not faaaaaaaaaair~_ ”

 

* * *

 

“No. I refuse to believe that.”

Sun sighed and let go of the handrail in the Bullhead’s passenger compartment. In exchange, he snaked his tail around it, securing himself enough that he could allow himself to fall forward to lean at an impossible angle. It was his favorite trick, and one that always got a rise out of his intended targets.

“What’s so hard to believe?” he demanded, placing his hands on his hips. He hovered over his teammates, swaying slightly on his feet from the motions of the airship. “That I, Sun Wukong, could find one of the most interesting teams at Beacon and hang out with them for a whole weekend? You think that I’m so boorish and unfun that I couldn’t manage that without the rest of you?”

“I take offense to that,” said Scarlet David. “Never once have I called you ‘unfun’.”

Sun narrowed his eyes at the unsaid implication, but before he could say anything, a gust of wind rocked the Bullhead and caused him to teeter around the cabin, pivoting on the anchor his tail made on the handrail.

Scarlet merely smiled up at him. He had spent the entire flight up from the city center without using his restraints yet remained perfectly still the entire time, the bastard.

“Well, I think it’s great that you made some new friends,” said Neptune. “And this time you only almost got arrested three times doing it. I think that’s a new record!”

“Ha ha, let’s all laugh at the leader. I’m trying to share a story of daring and trials through adversity here, and you’re all being _so supportive._ ”

“Good,” Sage commented from the back. “We’re all on the same page, then.”

Sun grumbled and pulled himself back to his feet, grabbing onto the rail with his hands as the Bullhead touched down at Beacon. “At least come with me to say hey. I want to check in with Blake, make sure she didn’t get into too much trouble. She’s got a bit of a weird situation with her registration, after all.”

He blinked. “Which I shouldn’t talk about. At all. So, forget I mentioned it.”

“Rain check,” said Sage. “I just want to get us situated. We’ve only got so much time before the Tournament.”

“And _I_ am going to go to _bed_ ,” Scarlet added.

Sun dropped his head into his hands. “It’s not even lunchtime!”

“I know! My alarm isn’t even supposed to go off for another two hours!”

Sun watched his team abandon him. Choosing practicality over fun, as always. That was fine, he’d get them to loosen up eventually. It was only a matter of time.

“So tell me more about this Team RWBY,” said Neptune, falling into step beside him.

“You’re not heading to the guest dorms?” Sun asked.

Neptune scoffed. “You think you could mention four beautiful and badass ladies and I _wouldn’t_ tag along to meet them? How long have we known each other?”

Sun cheered. “I knew I could count on you! Come on, they’re _great,_ you’ll love them. The leader, Ruby, she’s like a kid but she’s got this scythe that’s bigger than she is, and I’m pretty sure her sister can punch a hole in the freakin’ _moon,_ and I already told you about Blake, and then there’s the Schnee but she’s actually kind of cool...”

“I got it, man. You don’t need to sell me on them. Just give me a chance to work my magic—”

_splat_

Sun turned just in time to see a bright green water balloon impact against Neptune’s face. Water went _everywhere._

_“Sorry!”_

Sun waved at the red-haired girl who was apologising. She waved a pool noodle back at him. Behind her, another girl with shorter, brighter orange hair was busy unfolding what appeared to be a hand-held water balloon cannon.

“Uh, are you okay?” Sun asked, turning back to his friend.

Neptune wiped the water out of his eyes and gave a reassuring smile. “This is nothing. It’s not like I can’t take _showers,_ come on.”

“Sure, but…” Sun trailed off. The two girls had turned tail and were running as fast as they could away from them.

 _What are they running from?_ he wondered, turning to see.

Weiss Schnee stood on the edge of the fountain, a series of glyphs stacked next to her. There was a loud _slorsh,_ which sounded almost like the world’s largest toilet flushing in reverse, and the glyphs expanded as a large waterspout rose in their midst, sucked directly from the fountain. It grew through the stacked glyphs, rising taller and taller, gaining speed with every glowing white checkpoint, until it crested over the top and spilled directly into their path.

“You were saying?” Sun asked.

Neptune swallowed. He reached up to his forehead and slowly, deliberately, dragged his orange goggles down over his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Yang doubled back to their biggest ammo dump. It was a large metal tub, “borrowed” from the kitchens, which they’d filled with as many water balloons as would fit. These would help them push back from No Man’s Land, the choke point between the library and the dining hall that Ruby had designated as the final killzone. That was where they’d be able to hold the line against JNPR’s advance.

It wasn’t working. Pyrrha currently stood in the middle of No Man’s Land, her shield held in front of her defiantly. She drew as much fire as she could but she held fast, letting the others gain ground behind her.

Blake sailed backwards into view, casting out a shadow clone mid-air to bounce her down behind the fence where Yang stood with the balloons. “It’s no use, they’ve got all angles covered,” she said, dipping her weapon into the standing water in the tub to refill it. “I can’t get around them.”

“Then we go through, Isabelle,” said Yang, reaching up to tip an imaginary hat.

“I’m not Isabelle Nightshade,” said Blake, looking over her shoulder and winking. She held up her freshly reloaded water gun and charged it with a pump of the compressor. “My name is Goldie Bernhardt, and I’m here to lead the charge. Wanna buy a cow?”

Yang burst out into a fit of giggles. “Oh man, I’m never living that one down, am I?”

“Nope.”

“Great. Then if you’re Goldie, I’ll be Yang.”

With that, Yang reached back, gave Blake a wink of her own, and slammed her fist straight into the tub. The shockwaves rippled throughout the water, bursting every single balloon in one go.

“What are you doing?” Blake asked, raising an eyebrow in concern.

“Just be ready to move.” Yang picked up the tub and took a leap over the fence. With a practiced movement, she let go of the tub and hit the release on her right bracer, unfolding one of her gauntlets to fire behind her, adding to her momentum. The unbalanced force put her into a spin, and she used this to fling the contents of the tub directly at the Nikos Offensive Line.

The sheet of water crested against Pyrrha’s makeshift shield and splattered sideways, catching Ren and Nora full on in the face. They needed a moment to wipe the water out of their eyes, and that was when Blake burst out from behind the barrier to strike.

Yang picked her water gun back up and followed Blake into the fray. It was chaos, dodging Pyrrha’s foam plastic sword, exchanging bursts of water with the others.

She wasn’t entirely certain how she’d ended up opposite Nora, but they nodded to each other, backed off, and prepared.

Yang slowly reached down and grabbed a set of water wings, clutching them in her fingers for a pair of padded knuckle-dusters.

Nora unfolded the PVC pipe and flipped the top of the water balloon feeder closed, revealing a makeshift plastic hammer.

Despite their many differences, the two of them had a few very specific things in common. They were each the bruisers of their respective teams, using their specialties to enhance their strength. They met up every week to spot each other lifting weights, and encouraged each other to train and push themselves further. Both of their fighting styles were about weathering attacks and positioning themselves for one final decisive strike.

Yang had speed. Nora had reach. As they faced off against each other on the water-torn battlefield, each of them knew one simple truth: It would come down to whoever made the first strike.

As if reacting to an unspoken cue, they charged.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you, James,” Ozpin said, reaching towards the display. “We look forward to your arrival.”

He disconnected the call and leaned forward at his desk. “Interesting. Did you catch that?”

“He’s worried,” said Glynda. She stood off to the side, just out of view of the CCT transmission. Not to hide from James Ironwood, of course, but just in case anyone else had been monitoring that call. Atlas encryption was formidable, but “virtually impossible” to break didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Ozpin sighed. “He’s always worried. This is different. Not only is he accompanying his students to the Festival, but he’s bringing half the Fifth Fleet with him. It’s not just the Headmaster of Atlas coming along, but the General. He’s sending a message.”

“Yes, but to who?”

“Who else?” Ozpin stood up from the desk and moved to the windows, hitting the switch to change them from opaque to transparent. “She’s moving more openly than she ever has before. She’s always had cat’s paws acting for her, but they were subtle. We used to have to work to find her influence.”

He took a sip of his coffee and stared down at the courtyard below. “They’ve never moved openly against the Maidens before,” he said, musing more to himself than to Glynda. “Why now?”

Glynda stepped up next to him. “Something must have changed. The Guardian…?”

“I haven’t heard back from her, either. Something is _wrong._ ”

Together, they stared down at the children playing at the base of the school. It was hard to see which; Ozpin’s office was too high up in Beacon Tower for anyone on school grounds to appear as anything larger than an ant, which is why he made a point to be as accessible to his students as possible. Always on the ground floor, able to answer questions and, if need be, put out any fires.

It was too easy to look down on people from here.

Glynda’s thoughts must have been mirroring his own. “Sometimes I forget they’re just children,” she said, straightening her glasses. “They always grow up too fast.”

“That’s why it’s important for them to still be children now, while they can.”

Glynda squinted. “Is that…?”

Ozpin glanced over to where she was pointing. One of the colorful specks below sailed upwards, tumbling end over end until it became recognizable as one of the students.

_**WHUD** _

Yang Xiao Long slammed face-first into the window in front of them. She peeled her face off the glass and waved cheerfully at them, before letting herself fall to the ledge underneath. She unfolded her gauntlets and used their recoil to leap from ledge to ledge, until she reached the flying buttresses and ran down to rejoin her fellow students in the quad.

“That’s it,” said Glynda. “That’s the point where it needs to end. Excuse me, Headmaster.”

Ozpin casually sipped his coffee.

 

* * *

 **Beacon Student Registry  
** _Vytal Festival Registration_

 **Name:** Ruby Rose  
**Age:** 15  
**Class:** First-year  
**Team:** RWBY [Leader]

**Huntsman-Track Qualifications:**

Signal Academy – Early Graduate  
Beacon Initiation – White Knight

 **Registered Weapon:** Custom-built High-Caliber Sniper Scythe – _Designation: Crescent Rose_

 **Semblance Classification:** Enhancement – Speed

Ruby Rose can channel her Aura into her own body to increase her speed. The more Aura she actively uses, the faster she is able to travel. Her Aura gives off a temporary physical residue (scattered rose petals), which increase in quantity the more she uses her Semblance. With practice and focus, she enters a phase state in which she is unhindered by gravity or wind pressure – this state still has a physical presence, and her momentum can be halted by impact or other force.

 **Combat Specialization:** Ranged Support (primary), Melee Weapon Specialist (secondary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sufficiently fluffy chapter is indistinguishable from an episode of Chibi.


	16. Hidden Weapons

“It’s time for a team meeting!” shouted Ruby, which was never a good sign.

Weiss groaned and rolled over in bed. It was Saturday. Saturday was her day to sleep in, that was the _rule._ Someone deserved to be _fired_ for this.

“Come on, lazybones! Everyone up! We need to get a head start on this!”

Out of a cannon, if possible. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and fought back a yawn. “Is this a quick question so we can go back to sleep thing?”

“Weiss, come onnnnn,” Ruby whined. “You were the one who wanted to get a head start on planning for the Vytal Tournament. This is _important._ ”

Weiss tensed up as Ruby went over to the curtains. Thankfully she did _not_ throw them open to blind them all with fresh sunlight, or else Weiss would have had to _murder her._ Instead, Ruby plugged her scroll into the projector and pulled up a diagram of their symbols.

Every Huntsman had a personal symbol. A sigil to represent them, something unique to them. It went on official documents and adorned their belongings; every manufacturer was set up to embroider, emboss, or screen-print a sigil on demand.

Weiss’s own was a variant of the Schnee snowflake. The iconography connected her visually to her family’s legacy; the snowflake was the symbol of the Schnee Dust Company, and every Schnee took on this symbol for their own. Like a real snowflake, each one was unique to them, with differing fractal patterns to showcase their individual identity. Her sister Winter had one, as did their mother and grandfather. Even Whitley had one assigned to him, though he had no interest in Huntsman training.

Ruby straightened her back like she was giving a keynote presentation. “We’ve all gotten used to each other over the past few months,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. “We’ve eaten together, lived together, and most importantly fought together. We know how we fight and what each other’s capabilities are. This is going to become crucial to our scholastic career, and specifically to our progression through the Vytal Festival Tournament.”

There was something familiar about Ruby’s stance. Weiss squinted at her, trying to figure it out. The way she placed her hands, the tilt of her head as she spoke...

“Did you practice this in front of a mirror?” Yang asked, lying on her back from on top of her bed. She had her head craned backwards over the edge to watch Ruby upside-down. Her hair dangled in front of Blake, who made no motion to move it out of her way.

“Yes, now shut up, you’re going to make me lose my place.” Ruby shuffled her feet and squared her shoulders, trying to force herself into an even more professional position.

That was it. Ruby moved the way Weiss did when giving a presentation in class. She even tossed her head back when turning back to the projector, adjusting an invisible ponytail that would have been draped over her shoulder.

...huh. Either Weiss was too tired to get angry at the pantomime, or it didn’t bother her as much as she was expecting it to.

“ _Anyway,_ ” Ruby continued, reaching out to the projection and dragging the four icons around, “one of the things we can add in our favor is team combos. We each have our preferred fighting styles, and we know roughly what each other’s capabilities are.” She pulled her own symbol into the center of the screen, a stylized rose displayed in red. Next to her symbol, she placed Blake’s black flower. “My speed lets me bounce around the battlefield, and I can either support at long range or dart in for a melee strike. Blake’s best at the quick strikes from multiple directions, so if she and I do a combo, we can combine those two skills. But if I call out for me and Weiss...” She moved Weiss’s white snowflake up to replace Blake’s. “...she and I can do some sort of strike with my rifle and her glyphs, or she can springboard me into the fray like we did with the Nevermore.”

Weiss blinked. That actually wasn’t a bad idea, considering everyone’s specializations. Between Weiss’s mastery of Dust, Ruby’s overpowered rifle, Yang’s durability, and Blake’s stealth… This could work. “How would you call for a combo attack?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ruby said. She bounced excitedly on her tiptoes, abandoning her presentation affectation altogether. “That’s what I wanted to work on today with everyone. All the different things we could do together, and what kind of secret code words we could come up with so that we don’t let the enemy know what we’re doing.”

“Grimm won’t understand anyway, though. Why the secrecy?”

“We won’t always be fighting Grimm,” Ruby pointed out. “Even putting the Tournament aside, Huntresses defend against wandering bandits, and help the police take down criminals like Torchwick, and there’s always the White Fang out there.” She winced. “I’m sorry, Blake, but it’s gonna happen.”

Blake looked up from her scroll, where she had been idly typing something. “That’s… fair. I hate to say it, but as long as they’re working for Torchwick and that weird fire lady, they’re not the White Fang that my— they’re not the White Fang that I knew. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way,” she added, holding up her scroll for a second.

“Is that who you’ve been texting lately?” Weiss asked.

Blake nodded. “I might have burned some bridges, but I used to spend most of my time with a couple people who would be appalled at the thought of the White Fang working for humans. I’ve been trying to reach out.”

“Any hits?”

“Only one person responded so far. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad about that.”

Yang dropped down to the floor. “What about us, Ruby? Did you have something for us yet, ‘cause I have some ideas…”

“No,” said Ruby, definitively.

“Oh come on, you don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I know _exactly_ what you’re going to say, and the last time we did that, Dad had to come get me with a ladder!”

Yang flapped her hand dismissively. “You’ve got Aura now, it’ll be _fine._ ”

Ruby crossed her arms. “I told you, we’re not doing it.”

“It’s effective!”

“It’s _embarrassing!_ Our team attack is not going to be Get Help.”

Blake shut her scroll and put it away. “What’s ‘Get Help’?”

Ruby and Yang looked at Blake. They looked at each other. They looked at Blake again.

“...what?” Blake asked, drawing back defensively.

“Ruby,” said Yang, tilting her head in thought. “I have a better idea.”

 

* * *

 **Chapter Sixteen  
** **Hidden Weapons**

* * *

 

When Atlas came to town, they came in force.

The _Volitans_ -class battle cruiser was spectacular to behold. The clean lines, the lionfish-like vanes, the state-of-the-art weaponry – it was a marvel of modern engineering. As the backbone of the Atlesian Air Fleet, the _Volitans_ -class was second to none. Each cruiser was an army unto itself, boasting a complement of dropships and air superiority fighters, complete with automatic Grimm targeting software and a robust wireless network to provide immediate feedback to the bridge.

The sight of a _Volitans_ was uncommon in Vale, but not unheard of. Official business between Kingdoms often had a military escort, and Atlas wasted no opportunity to turn any public appearance into free publicity. Consumers around the world looked to Atlas for the latest in electronic and mechanical innovation, after all, and what better to demonstrate the industrial might of the northern nation than with shiny new airships?

As important as the Vytal Festival was, the populace of Vale was likely expecting to see at least one of the capital ships in the skies.

They probably weren’t expecting eight of them.

James Ironwood, General of the Atlas Military and Headmaster of its Huntsman Academy, stood on the bridge of the _Livingston,_ his personal flagship. It was the oldest of its line still in service, second in production ever. The prototype was displayed in cross-section at the Atlas Military Museum of Science and Industry, an interactive exhibit that Atlas youth could poke and prod and climb through to their hearts’ content. The _Livingston_ should likewise have been mothballed long ago, but Ironwood had rescued it from decommission and spent a great deal of time on a complete refit, resulting in what was paradoxically the oldest and most modern ship in the fleet.

Everything in the ship was state-of-the-art. Modern Dust engines keeping the ship afloat, courtesy of their partnership with the Schnee Dust Company. Renovated broadside, ventral, and dorsal cannons, providing the ship with overlapping fields of fire to cover 95% of the sky around it. There was even a bleeding-edge communications array that could interface with any other system in the Task Force, which let meant that in an emergency, Ironwood could remotely control every bit of Atlas tech in range of their signal.

There was a question amongst the rich influencers and socialites of Atlas, one that they brought up every time there was a discussion on military expenditure. If he had a ship, then over time replaced all its parts so that eventually nothing of the original ship remained... was it still the same ship?

The talk show pundits ate it up, and the subject circled around the fundraisers and the rallies. Ironwood laughed it off; after all, the same could be said of him, right? Both were ridiculed for the effect they had on the budget, for being archaic and stuffy. Both were “relics of an age long-past.”

The thing that Ironwood knew and they didn’t was that both still had surprises hidden beneath the scars.

He didn’t mind the gossip. He ignored it and proceeded as if he never heard it. It didn’t matter, anyway.

“Sir, we’re getting a transmission from Vale Traffic Control.” The Comms officer swiveled in her chair, waiting for permission to continue.

“Proceed, Lieutenant,” said Ironwood. “And put it up on the bridge speakers.”

The Comms officer turned back to her station, giving no reaction to the breach in protocol. Ironwood allowed himself a moment of satisfaction; his bridge crew was hand-picked, the best of the best, and Lieutenant Sonnenblume was no exception.

The comm crackled with static. _“Atlas vessels, you are now entering Vale airspace. Please state the nature of your business.”_

There was a brief high-pitched squeal at the end of the transmission. The traffic controller had fumbled the transmission switch upon communication, generating radio feedback that echoed throughout the bridge before the computer squelched it.

Ironwood nodded to Sonnenblume, giving his approval to proceed. The Vale traffic controllers were nervous. He had been expecting this, ever since making the decision to divert an entire task force to escort the Amity Colosseum from Vacuo to Vale. It floated peacefully in the middle of the formation, keeping pace with its powerful Dust engines that kept it in the skies.

Sonnenblume hit the transmission switch. “Control, this is _ADS Livingston_ reporting for Task Force Blue. We are on approach to Beacon at vector Four-Six-Niner, requesting clearance to enter Beacon airspace.”

_“ADS Livingston, you are cleared for vector Four-Six-Niner. Please drop your package in the usual spot, and come in out of the cold.”_

This was part of the tradition for the Vytal Festival, to drop some formalities and refer to the Colosseum as a friendly delivery between peers, rather than an operation between allied nations. It was just on the wrong side of overly-saccharine, but that was the case with many old traditions like that. General consensus was that the Warrior King of Vale had thought he had a great sense of humor, and that his peers were too polite to tell him otherwise.

Sonnenblume swiveled back around. “Clear to proceed, sir.”

“Patch me through, Lieutenant.” Ironwood stepped up to the center console of the bridge and waited for the officer’s nod. “Control, this is _Livingston_ actual. Task Force Blue is proceeding as directed. Please let the Old Man know we’re here.”

_“Connecting you to Beacon Ops now.”_

Ironwood narrowed his eyes at the comm. That was very much not how the tradition went. There was usually a minor runaround, traffic control playing the part of a beleaguered doorman with a broken bell.

There was a click, and when the radio cut back in, the voice on the other end was far more familiar.

_“Rest your brains and do not worry about the wall.”_

“When we have climbed over it,” responded Ironwood, giving the other half of the code phrase, “we shall know what is on the other side.”

This was an identification phrase that Ozpin had set up with the other headmasters. This specific one was meant for Atlas, and while it wasn’t unheard of for Oz to use it in the open, it was certainly uncommon enough to note. Either something had happened, or...

_“It’s good to see you, James.”_

“Oz,” acknowledged Ironwood. “Didn’t think you were doing this part yourself.”

_“I didn’t think you were bringing half the fleet with you.”_

So it was a message. _If you think it’s serious, we’ll treat it seriously._ It should have made Ironwood feel better.

Out loud, he said, “The Vytal Festival is a big deal, Oz. So many people in town for so many reasons.”

_“As always, James, there are few indeed who are looking for the sort of attention that you bring whenever you’re in town.”_

Ironwood shook his head. “You know me, I can’t pass up an opportunity to show off. Speaking of which, I’ll need a permit to do a demonstration of some of our new defenses.”

_“I’ll forward that to the Vale Council, they should send you the proper forms soon. Everything else, we can discuss in person.”_

“I look forward to it. Maybe we can discuss upgrading Beacon’s defenses while I’m here.”

_“I’ll put the tea on for you.”_

“See you soon. _Livingston_ out.” Ironwood nodded to Sonnenblume, and waited for her to signal that the transmission had ended. “Lieutenant, oversee the final approach and the drop-off of the Colosseum. I’ll be taking a shuttle down.”

“Yes sir. Standing orders until your return?”

“Contact Lucius,” said Ironwood. “I need to compare his reports to what Ozpin’s about to tell me. Other than that, stay on alert.”

 

* * *

 

“Alright, so, here’s what I’m thinking.” Ruby dropped her notebook onto the picnic table. It was opened to a page covered in scribbled lines, connecting each of her team’s four symbols.

It was an impressive sketch, Penny noted. The use of multiple colored pencils helped each unique element stand out. The lines connecting each were likewise in different colors, each with their own unique labels, which definitely kept the page as a whole on the right side of “flowchart”, and only just barely edging into “conspiracy board” territory.

Ruby pointed at the connecting lines. “The good news is that everyone’s skills work super well with everyone else’s.”

“What’s the bad news?” Penny asked, following the lines from one symbol to the next.

“That’s also the bad news. It’s too easy to get mixed up with all the different things we can do.”

The two of them had met up just before lunch. Penny was delighted when Ruby had called, asking to hang out with her down in the city. They had kept in contact ever since the fight at the warehouse, but with the semester picking back up and Penny’s own duties, they never did much more than exchange friendly text messages.

Penny technically wasn’t even supposed to let anyone know how to reach her by scroll. Father had given explicit instructions that it was for emergencies only, that there needed to be a very good reason for anyone to want to contact her. While she did consider it an appropriate emergency to exchange contact information during a search-and-rescue operation, she wasn’t entirely certain she could sell Father on that. It definitely wouldn’t pass muster with General Ironwood, either.

Thankfully, it hadn’t come up in conversation.

In any case, she kept in contact with Ruby, and thus there they were, outside Stewie’s Smoothies off Main Street, enjoying a nice weekend afternoon together. It was a welcome deviation from her normal weekend plans.

“What seems to be the issue?” Penny asked.

“Too many choices,” said Ruby, tracing her finger along one of the routes. “Like, me and Weiss. If I call for a combo, how do I differentiate between her adding Dust to my rifle, or me using her Glyphs? There are so many different things we can do, and they’re all so specific to the circumstance. But if you look at Yang…”

She pointed at the lines connecting Yang to the other girls. There were decidedly fewer of them.

“Does Yang not work well with the others? She seemed very friendly to me.”

Ruby shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s not the issue. It’s just that everyone’s combo with Yang is mostly the same.”

Penny blinked. “Even though your fighting styles are different?”

“Yeah, but we all have a way to throw her at the enemy, and that tends to solve a lot of problems right away.”

Penny recalled a memory of Yang crashing into a squad of White Fang soldiers from above. Most of them never got back up until the paramedics arrived. “That makes sense.”

Ruby grabbed her smoothie and fished around the bottom with her straw, presumably to break up chunks of frozen dairy matter. “It’s not so simple with the rest of us, though. It’s all so… _specific._ Y’know?”

“Because of how differently you fight?”

“Exactly!”

It was easy to talk to Ruby. She went from Point A to Point B to Point C in relatively short order. She made connections between conversational threads faster than Penny initially expected, and started and dropped tangents almost as easily as breathing, but she was unassuming, and she _smiled_ when she talked.

The scientists and the officers in Atlas smiled, too, but those smiles often didn’t mean anything. They asked Penny questions without caring about the answers, judging _how_ she answered instead of what she was saying. With the exception of Father, General Ironwood, and a few others that the General brought around from time to time, most people treated her as if she wasn’t even in the room.

Ruby paid attention. When she asked Penny questions, she listened to the answers. It was… refreshing.

She hadn’t asked why Penny didn’t get a smoothie of her own. Penny wasn’t certain if she wanted her to.

“...you know what? I’m overthinking this.” Ruby pulled out a pencil and started erasing the connecting lines. “You were right, Penny. It’s different every time, and that’s because every fight is different. We need to take it one fight at a time.”

Penny hadn’t said that at all. She nodded anyway, though; one of the things Father always said was that sometimes, people with problems to solve just needed to talk through them. Even if she didn’t have any advice, Father would always thank her for listening. “So what are you thinking?”

Ruby took a sip of her smoothie. “If I just call the combo, we should be able to figure out what’s best for the situation. Like if we need to hide and regroup, I could call for Weiss and Yang, and they’d be able to make… I don’t know, a fog cloud or something? Weiss’s Dust and Yang’s blasts together could do that.”

“So if you set up some expectations of what you want out of each combo, they’d already know what to do?”

“Yeah! Blake and I are both really fast, we could make a bunch of quick strikes and get away. Yang hits things really hard, so who I pair with her will tell her what I want her to hit.” Ruby started writing things down on the few remaining lines – there was only one left for each connection. “Weiss can be used best to set up support, so she could enhance my weapon, or make Blake faster or something. Penny, you’re a genius!”

“I think this was your idea, Ruby.” Penny beamed at her. “You are a fantastic team leader, do you know that?”

Ruby’s face turned bright red. “Oh, stop, you’re just being nice.”

Penny was about to reinforce Ruby’s self-esteem further, but before she could say anything else, her scroll beeped at her.

It was a military code. The General had arrived. He wanted to speak with her directly.

She looked up at Ruby, who was still waving away the effects of Penny’s compliments. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Ruby looked stricken. “What? Already?”

“Yes. My plans for the evening have changed, and I have to go now.” Penny stood up from the table and offered a conciliatory smile. “I had a lot of fun today, though!”

Ruby nodded, looking somewhat less crestfallen. She brightened up as she moved around to give Penny a hug. “Thank you again for your help. Think we can see that movie next week?”

“I don’t know,” said Penny truthfully. “I will let you know when I can see you next.”

“Oh, alright. We’ll work something out. Hopefully before you kick my butt in the Tournament!” Ruby waved. “Have a good evening!”

Penny waved back. “You as well!”

She watched Ruby disappear towards the school shuttles. They weren’t that far away, and once her friend was safely around the corner, Penny let her smile fade.

General Ironwood wanted to speak with her. It had to be about the fight, there was nothing else that stood out so visibly against her otherwise perfect record. Father had warned her about getting involved, and this was the logical progression of events.

Penny sighed and glanced up at the sky, noting the dark spots approaching from the west. They were too far out for the human eye to see as anything more than dots, but Penny saw them for what they were. Atlas cruisers in formation.

She hoped Ruby wouldn’t get in trouble for speaking to her.

 

* * *

 

Dropships flew low over the city in parade formation. Their passing rattled the windows of the warehouse. Roman sighed as another squadron passed overhead, their shadows breaking up the light streaming in from outside.

The heat was in town, and that meant they needed to be ready. He took a quick stock of his resources.

Most of the Dust had been moved off-site. What remained was a few crates of crystals and ammo, just enough to cover the final step of Stage One… or for a rapid evacuation, should things go south with the feds.

The big guy on loan from the White Fang was over by the remaining trucks, conferring with his flock. Most of the animals had gone underground, waiting for the next stage of Cinder’s original plan. Roman hadn’t told them yet that things were changing; if he needed them, they’d be there, and if not? He’d call them back to fill them in. Eventually.

Neo had come and gone in the last week, returning from the meeting that Cinder had taken her to. She hadn’t come empty-handed, either; the mad doctor had made Twinkletoes a new pair of legs, which he was currently in the process of breaking in.

No sooner than she had arrived, however, Neo had to turn right around and go out on another mission. Stage Two had crept up on them, and they needed to start laying the groundwork.

You always did better with a man on the inside, after all. With Neo leaving, they’d have _two._

Roman sighed. He’d rather have his best associate with him for the next bit. Stage Two had a lot of moving parts, and she was an expert in these kinds of logistics. That was the nature of their partnership, when you broke it down; he was the face and the brains, and she took stock of the details and kept everything running smoothly. It was how they’d kept under the radar for so many years, while being so successful.

But everything changed when the fire lady attached herself to their operation. Roman and Neo changed with it. If they had to dance to Cinder’s tune, they’d pick out their own rhythm.

Speaking of their glorious benefactor...

“Awful lot of noise they make,” Roman said, taking the cargo lift up to the second level. “Waving their military might out in the open where the impressionable children can see. There ought to be a law.”

There wasn’t much to the space above the main floor; it was mostly access to the HVAC systems and controls to the loading cranes, but there was an extensive series of catwalks stretching between them, crossing over the entire space. Cinder had taken over the landing against the wall, where she was able to look down upon the rest of her minions at her leisure. It was also a retreat for when she wasn’t feeling well, when her anxiety over her unreliable powers reached a breaking point.

She was there now, sitting on a cot that was nestled in the corner. Her hands were splayed before her, shaping an open flame. As he watched, it shifted in color and in size, expanding and contracting with her breathing, which was calm and measured.

It flickered as he approached. Cinder’s left eye twitched, and she turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

Roman pointed to the ceiling and waited. Sure enough, the roar of engines passed overhead again, drowning out all sound. “Ironwood’s in town, which means we need to step lightly for a few days until we’re all packed and ready to move.”

Cinder raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Why Roman, are you scared of the General and his big bad Knights?” she taunted.

“I’ve dealt with them before. Overpriced tin cans, the lot of them.” He took out a cigar and leaned forward to light it off the edge of her floating fireball. “I just wanted to let you and Miss Stickyfingers know that the boys will be busy tonight.”

Emerald materialized next to Cinder with an exaggerated groan. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “How do you always know?”

Roman grinned. She actually had a massive tell, but he wasn’t about to tell _her_ that. It’d take all the fun out of it. “I can’t give you all the answers, kid. Some lessons you just have to learn on your own.”

She let out a disgusted sigh. “Do you actually believe in your own bullshit, or do you just like hearing yourself speak?”

“When you know the answer to _that_ one, I’ll have nothing more to teach you.”

“Enough,” Cinder growled. She slammed her hands together, snuffing the fireball out in one smooth motion. “Say what you’re going to say and go. I don’t have the patience for this game.”

Roman blew out a ring of smoke and watched it waft lazily over her head. “Just letting you know it’ll be noisy. Bane’s going to be bringing back a bunch of those new mechs from Atlas and getting ready for the rally.”

He waved his arm in frustration. “Which, I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold _here,_ but it is what it is. Everything else has been secured at the factory.”

Cinder nodded. “Was there any issue getting in?”

“Nope, the beasts remembered the passcode, and thankfully the elevators still worked. Doc’s true to his word.”

“He knows better than to cross me,” Cinder said, the ghost of a satisfied smile on her lips. “We’ll be away for the rally. Emerald, Mercury, and I have an appointment to keep.”

Roman nodded and made his way back to the lift. Emerald followed him, probably to pass word to her little assassin friend.

The platform touched down on the ground level just as the loading dock opened. A large flatbed truck backed into the space, beeping loudly to warn everyone away from its oversized load.

Emerald craned her neck upwards, staring at the large, tarp-covered mechs. “How the hell did you get your hands on a bunch of Paladins?”

Roman winked at her. “It’s amazing what falls off the back of a truck these days.”

“No, really.”

He shrugged. “Atlas desperately needs to prove their superiority whenever they come in town, so there’s always a tech demonstration _somewhere_ in the city. I know a guy in the fleet who doesn’t mind looking the other way once in a while, and the wonderful thing about bureaucracy is that they’d rather write off a bunch of losses than look weak by starting a _very_ public investigation.”

“They’d just intentionally forget about a truckload of high-tech warmechs?” Emerald asked in disbelief.

“Look at it this way: If you had the most visible army in the world, would _you_ want people to think that you just _lost_ a shipment of weapons?”

Emerald shook her head. “You’ve got a point.”

“I _always_ have a point.”

She groaned again and went away to talk to Mercury.

Roman turned back to the truck to bask in the fruits of his labor. Well, the White Fang’s labor, but using his connections and on his orders, so it came out to the same thing. He moved to bring his cigar back up to his lips to enjoy his victory.

His fingers came up empty. He glanced around, looking to see if he’d dropped it by mistake on the way down.

“Pssst.”

Roman glanced up to see Emerald holding the cigar she’d plucked directly from his gloved fingers without him even noticing. She stuck out her tongue and dramatically dropped the cigar on the ground, then ground her foot into it to put it out.

Huh. He’d be impressed with her if that hadn’t been his last one.

 

* * *

 

Ruby ran into Blake in front of the library. That wasn’t surprising. What _was_ surprising was the fact that Blake didn’t dart out of the way in time, and the two of them fell in a heap of tangled limbs.

“Augh I’m sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going and here let me help you up—”

Ruby’s mouth ran on autopilot, at such speed that she wasn’t entirely certain it didn’t have a Semblance of its own. She pulled herself off the ground and helped Blake to her feet.

“It’s okay, really. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Blake started searching the ground around them. “Do you see my scroll? I had it in my hand.”

Ruby dropped down to her hands and knees and started searching the ground for it. “Is that why you didn’t see me coming?”

“ _You_ ran into _me,_ ” Blake pointed out.

“No, I know, and I’m sorry! It’s just that you’re usually so…” Ruby trailed off, trying to think of a word that didn’t sound so insulting. _Paranoid_ and _on-edge_ were bad ideas.

“I’m usually so what?”

“...attentive,” Ruby finished, weakly.

Blake glared at her, but her expression quickly softened. “...you’re not wrong,” she said after a moment. “I’ve just been talking to an old friend of mine.”

“The one you had a falling out with?”

“Yeah. I kind of left on bad terms, but we’ve been texting and it’s felt like old times again.”

Ruby nodded, poking her head out from behind a row of hedges. “I can understand that. Oh, hey, is that it?”

The scroll must have fallen off the library steps and bounced across the sidewalk. It currently lay face-down on the main path towards the fountain, the central hub of all the pathways in Beacon’s courtyard.

Ruby darted down the path and reached out to grab the discarded scroll just as someone else bent down to retrieve it. Ruby got there first; her hand closed around it just as a set of gloved fingers brushed against her own.

Standing before her were a pair of older teenagers – though every teenager at Beacon was older than Ruby, as her sister frequently pointed out. They both wore the black and white uniforms of the visiting students from Haven Academy, in what was a severe yet stylish cut.

The girl who reached for the phone accentuated her uniform with black lace gloves, knee-high black leather platform boots, and a lacy black headband over her hair, which was pulled to the sides in curly black pigtails. She smiled sweetly at Ruby, her green eyes flashing merrily, and her hands darted into a quick gesture.

Ruby didn’t know much of Atlesian Sign Language, but she was _pretty sure_ the girl had either said “Sorry” or “I have heartburn”.

The other student was taller, eschewing the uniform skirt for a simple pair of black pants. Her auburn hair was in a long, curly ponytail, pulled back out of her face to show her freckles. She grinned. “Sorry about that,” she said, her voice low and scratchy. “Didn’t mean to run into you, we just saw the scroll lying about and thought we’d help.”

“That’s alright,” said Ruby. “You’re from Haven, right? Here for the festival?”

The shorter girl nodded emphatically.

Ruby grinned. “Good luck! I hope we get to fight you, it’ll be a lot of fun.” She pocketed Blake’s scroll and held her hand out. “I’m Ruby.”

The taller girl hesitated for a moment, then reached out to clasp Ruby’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you. This is Neo, and I’m—”

Blake’s voice rang out from behind Ruby, in a tone that she’d never heard before. It quavered, it was uncertain. There were multiple emotions in the single word uttered, all fighting for dominance.

“Ilia?”

 

* * *

 **Beacon Student Registry  
** _Vytal Festival Registration_

 **Name:** Weiss Schnee  
**Age:** 17  
**Class:** First-year  
**Team:** RWBY

**Huntsman-Track Qualifications:**

Combat certification – Private  
Economics certification – Private  
Dust certification – Private  
Grimm identification certification – Private  
Corporate sponsorship – Schnee Dust Company  
Beacon Initiation – White Knight

 **Registered Weapon:** SDC Multi Action Dust Rapier – _Designation: Myrtenaster_

 **Semblance Classification:** Manipulation – Glyphs

Weiss Schnee’s Glyphs allow her to exert a fine control over her surroundings, allowing her to manipulate her environment. These sigils are a controlled projection of her Aura, creating geometric representations of the manifestation of her will. The visual appearance of this projection is not the Semblance itself, but rather the byproduct.

On their own, these glyphs alter velocity and friction, creating a space or surface that is variable in stability for herself or targets of her choosing. With the application of Dust, the glyphs can alter, refine, or reshape the results of the Dust activation in manners representative of this same physical control. This can result in a directed stream of flame, bursts of kinetic force, or the careful manipulation of the way Ice Dust expands to create a specific shape in the resulting ice.

Other applications of this Semblance have been demonstrated by Huntsmen in the Schnee family, which may indicate potential growth in Weiss Schnee’s mastery of her abilities.

 **Combat Specialization:** Dust Specialist (primary), Melee Support (secondary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny for your thoughts.


	17. A Broad Spectrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple updates, friends:
> 
> 1: I've got a few professional writing projects in the works, so just in case updates slow down, that's why.
> 
> 2: I've made an update/Q&A blog, feel free to ask questions there! I post some snippets as I write, too. evenastoppedclock-updates.tumblr.com
> 
> 3: Please also continue to comment if you were so inclined, I read and appreciate all of them even if I don't know how to respond! I feel awkward saying "thank you!" to all of them directly but please know you are heard and you are very, very appreciated.

Atlesian politics were a minefield. It was probably the most apt metaphor that James Ironwood could think of for it; placid on the surface, but one wrong move and it blows up in your face.

The position of Headmaster of Atlas Huntsman Academy came with one seat on the Council, and the leadership of the military came with another. Back in the early Post-War days the two positions were separate, but that hadn’t been the case ever since Mantle moved the capital and Atlas became the center of the entire government. Now, of course, the separate titles were more vestigial than anything else.

Because of this, Ironwood knew his position was tenuous. Those in power always wanted more, and the prospect of two votes for the price of one was a tempting goal. And thus it was that Ironwood danced the dance of the elite, keeping up social appearances and making his presence visible. It meant sleeping with one eye open, metaphorically speaking.

He kept his position secure by making sure that it was more convenient to keep him around than to replace him with someone else. Thus far it was working; the Atlas military was second to none, and his handpicked Special Operatives were cultivated from the top tier students from the Huntsman Academy. He kept a relationship with the Schnee Dust Company to keep his soldiers and technicians well-stocked, personally oversaw the government contracts with the weapons and robotics manufacturers, and ran constant patrols to keep the skies and grounds around Atlas clear of Grimm activity. Under his watch, the Kingdom was safer than ever, and if he had to jump through a few hoops to keep the vultures from circling over his chair, then so be it.

This was why he was in the Atlas Embassy, going over his lines.

“‘The Model 130 has been a standard security model for several years, and they have done a fine job, wouldn’t you agree? Wouldn’t—’ Skye, this line is in the script twice.”

The intercom buzzed with the voice of his assistant, in the recording booth on the other side of the glass. _“It’s repetitive reinforcement, sir. It helps the crowds empathise with your statement.”_

“They’re in the audience, they already want to hear what I have to say. I don’t want to sound like I’m talking down to them.”

_“You’re used to doing keynote speeches at trade conferences, sir. These booths are being installed on Main Street, right in the middle of festival foot traffic.”_

Ironwood blinked. Objectively he knew that, but Skye was right, that was a different kind of presentation. “Alright, but I still don’t want to seem like I’m being patronising.”

_“All in the tone of voice. Ready to keep going?”_

“Take it from where I left off.” He cleared his throat and started back up. “‘But the Kingdom of Atlas is a kingdom of innovation, and _fine_ just isn’t good enough. We’re proud to present the Atlesian Knight model two hundred—’”

The intercom buzzed again. _“Sir, Ms. Polendina is here to see you.”_

“Ahead of schedule,” Ironwood mused aloud. “Alright, Skye, let’s call it for the day. We’ll do the full recording first thing tomorrow morning. You have the timestamps for the displays?”

_“All sent to Ops.”_

“Perfect. Send her to my office.” He put the script away and exited the studio, taking care not to disturb the motion-capture rigging in the process. The booth was used for video recording as well as audio, though the rest of the furniture had been pulled out in preparation for the demonstration. Ironwood had left this part of the job until last since the production models and the graphics displays hadn’t yet been finished by the time they left Atlas.

The Atlas Embassy was nestled in the middle of Vale’s financial district, right at the intersections of two of the capital’s busiest streets. The windows overlooked the growing festivities as the shops along Main Street continued their work decorating for the increased foot traffic. Ironwood’s office was at the top of the building, and thus had the best view of the city.

The office itself had been arranged by his predecessor, an old fool who ran the military as if it was an offshore investment. Colonel Ferrous hadn’t seen a day of actual combat in his life, but he was popular in the kinds of circles with deep pockets and definite opinions.

Ironwood almost never used it. Even on the few occasions when he personally made the trip to Vale, he opted to stay aboard the vastly more secure _Livingston._ But appearances needed to be kept, and when he had to make a show to the dignitaries or the media, it was waiting for him. The very first thing he’d done on his first visit to Vale after taking office was to completely gut the room and rebuild it from the ground up. Gone were the commissioned oil paintings of battles Ferrous had never participated in. Out went the trophies, the medals, and the fake taxidermies of defeated Grimm (which were, admittedly, very impressive to the masses, but wouldn’t pass muster to any Huntsman worth his salt). The office became much like his cabin on his flagship; minimalist and functional.

He’d kept the globe, though. It was an ornate sphere carved out of wood, painstakingly detailed with continents in bas-relief, painted in a smooth glossy finish. It hung suspended in the base, a wrought steel platform with gold inlay, and was levitated gently by a small Gravity Dust crystal embedded within the wood. It spun lazily, mimicking the rotation of the planet itself, and it was quite possibly the only decent purchase Ferrous had made in his entire tenure.

Ironwood opened the door to his office to find Lucius Polendina’s little girl waiting for him.

“Reporting for duty, sir,” she said, standing at attention.

“Good afternoon, Penny,” said Ironwood, offering her a warm smile. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Not for very long at all,” said Penny. On the desk behind her, the globe wobbled awkwardly on its axis, recovering from being recently prodded. “How can I be of service today, General Ironwood?”

Cheerful and to the point. That was one of the things he liked about Penny. She did her job decisively and efficiently, and always with a smile on her face. He considered, as he frequently did when interacting with her, what the Atlas military would be like with a dozen soldiers like her, a hundred, or even more. All facing the public with a smile and the enemy with blades bared and at the ready.

“I talked to your father recently,” he said, answering Penny’s directness with his own. “He told me about your little adventure in the warehouse district.”

Penny’s expression faltered. “I stayed out of sight of any security cameras,” she said, defensively. “And I submitted a full operational report when I returned to my hotel. I can pull it up for you if you like—”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It states all the ways I followed protocol, Atlas military doctrine, and the rules that my father laid out for me—”

Ironwood held up a hand. “Penny, please. You’re not in trouble.”

Penny blinked. “I’m not?”

“I was going to commend you for taking action in such a situation.” Ironwood pulled out his scroll and brought up the police report from the Schnee warehouse incident. “You provided aid and support in a delicate situation, and shut down an immediate escalation of violence. Headmaster Ozpin says you very likely saved dozens of lives that night.”

“Thank you, sir.” She tilted her head quizzically. “Then what do you need to talk to me about?”

“The students you were there with.” Ironwood swiped through the report to the picture of the girl who fought so much like Qrow Branwen. “How did you meet them, and why were you following them to begin with?”

“This was all in my report, sir. If you’d like me to fetch a copy—”

Ironwood shook his head as he interrupted her yet again. “I’ve read your report, Penny. I’d like to hear it from you.”

Penny took a moment to compose herself, which was itself a curiosity. “Ruby and her team ran into me while I was exploring the storefronts downtown,” she said, as if reciting from memory. “We were both interested in learning more about the Tournament from each other. I saw her again the following day when she was out looking for one of her teammates, who was missing. I offered to help her look.”

He frowned. “What was your impression of Miss Rose?”

Penny beamed. “I like her! She’s friendly, and very easy to talk to. I don’t get to talk to very many people.”

“You talk to me,” Ironwood pointed out. “And your father, and the other scientists on his team.”

“I do,” said Penny carefully. “But I don’t have many opportunities to speak to anyone my own…” She faltered, then corrected herself. “To any other young people. That’s why I’m looking forward to when you approve my transfer to Atlas Academy.”

“What about Dr. Soleil’s girl? You spend a lot of time with her.”

Penny hesitated. “Ciel is a wonderful teammate,” she said diplomatically, “but she’s not… social. Ruby is a wonderful conversationalist.”

Ironwood sighed. “You’ve spent more time with her since then?”

“Yes. I was with her just today, before you sent for me.” Penny frowned. “Are you saying you don’t want me to talk to her?”

There it was. The meat of the matter. Ironwood shook his head. “I don’t want to forbid you from anything, Penny. I just want to remind you about operational security. If anyone found out about you before you were ready…”

Penny sighed. “I know. It’s not my time yet.”

“Use your best judgment.”

“I will.” She gave a textbook salute. “Was there anything else you needed, sir?”

“No, that was all. Check in with me before you do anything else of that scale.”

“Will do!”

“Dismissed.”

Penny walked sedately out of his office, leaving Ironwood with a lingering doubt. The project was on track. He had made sure to confirm that the moment he saw the incident report.

He had another call with Lucius later that evening. It was certain to be interesting to get the scientist’s perspective on the matter. No, the project was still on track, but loose variables were always a concern.

He’d just need to watch a bit closer.

 

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen  
** **A Broad Spectrum**

* * *

 

“Ilia?”

Blake suddenly felt as if the very world had tipped upside down. As if her feet were upon a fragile outcropping on the side of a mountain, and any sudden move would send her crashing to the ground below.

“Hey, Blake,” said Ilia, waving her hand bashfully. “I had a feeling I’d run into you at the library.”

It had been almost a year since she’d seen Ilia Amitola in person, but there was no mistaking the girl in front of her now. She had a few more scars, and there was a weariness behind her eyes that hadn’t been there before, but that wasn’t surprising. It had cost Blake a bit more than she expected, running away from the White Fang. No reason to think the same wasn’t true for anyone else.

“What are you even doing here?” Blake asked. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but you never said—”

“—that I’d enrolled in a Huntsman Academy? Found a way to use my training and my history to go legit?” Ilia shook her head, but the smile on her face softened her otherwise chiding tone. “I figured if _you_ could do it…”

Blake crossed her arms. “That’s not what I meant. We’ve been talking for the past two weeks and you didn’t mention this _at all._ ”

Ilia’s grin faltered, just for a moment. Then she rallied and crossed her arms in a mirror of Blake’s own pose. “I just wanted to surprise you. Did it work?”

“I’m surprised,” Blake said. “I’m _very_ surprised.” She walked up next to Ruby and plucked her scroll out of her diminutive team leader’s hands.

Ruby jumped slightly at the touch; she’d been glancing back and forth between Blake and Ilia during the entire conversation. “Oh! Hi, sorry! I’m Ruby, Blake’s teammate. She’s told me so much about you!”

Ilia raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Blake. “Has she?”

“Well, no,” Ruby admitted. “Just that you’re an old friend and that you’ve been texting a lot lately. But I’m glad you two got back in touch. It’s always rough not seeing a friend for a while.”

She brightened up. “I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on, though!”

“It’s been an interesting year, to say the least,” Ilia agreed. “We have a lot to discuss.”

“Well, feel free to hang out with us any time,” said Ruby. “We usually go into the city on weekends, we can make a day of it.”

The other girl, Neo, signed a polite refusal.

“We wouldn’t want to impose,” said Ilia, paraphrasing.

“It would be nice,” said Blake. “We should plan something.”

“Any friend of Blake’s is a friend of ours!” Ruby added. “And you’ll get to meet Yang and Weiss too, you’ll love them!”

Ilia’s face froze for a split second, her expression darkening. Literally – her eyes flashed from blue to black, flickering back almost before anyone could see. If Blake hadn’t been watching for it, she’d have missed it; she was pretty sure Ruby didn’t even notice.

“Alright,” she said eventually, as her partner signed reluctant approval next to her. “We’ll work something out. Blake, text me later, okay? We still need to check in at the guest dorms.”

Neo waved cheerfully at them as they walked away, leaving Ruby and Blake alone in the quad.

Blake watched them go. She’d been holding back her emotions as best as she could, not trusting herself not to run when her past came up to face her. It was a testament to the work she’d been putting in with the rest of the team that she didn’t do exactly that; a month ago, even a week ago, who knew how she’d react? Now though, it all came crashing down on her like a tidal wave.

It was really her, then. Ilia made it out, just like she did. She made it out, and she was training to be a Huntress. It was everything she’d wanted, before... _before._

Ruby peered up at Blake shrewdly. “So… that’s the friend you’ve been texting lately?” She started walking.

“Yeah,” said Blake, falling into step next to and trailing just behind Ruby. “That’s Ilia. She’s an old friend.”

“When the two of you were in…” Ruby glanced around, noticing they weren’t entirely alone in the school’s courtyard. She brought her hands up to her face and hooked her fingers down into exaggerated fangs. “‘Grrrrr’.”

“Subtle. But yes.”

“That explains the thing with her eyes.” It was not a question. “She reacted to Weiss’s name the way you did, first time around.”

So she _did_ notice. Blake shouldn’t have been surprised; her team leader was a sniper. She usually noticed the subtle details like that. “It’s not an unreasonable reaction. Especially for someone who’s…” She raised her own fingers. “‘Grrr’.”

“We’ll just have to let her get used to Nice Weiss,” said Ruby, glancing back to offer Blake a smile. “I meant what I said, you know. Any friend of yours…”

“I appreciate it.”

Blake was quiet the rest of the walk back to their room. It was weird, seeing Ilia in public like this. In civilian clothing, no less; she’d usually kept her combat jumpsuit on even in camp. A practice that Adam encouraged, since missions could happen at any moment. The school uniform was about as far from that as possible.

Although the black and white of Haven’s uniform matched Ilia’s usual color scheme pretty well. She’d preferred neutral tones in most of her outfits, enjoying the contrast they made with the shifting colors of her faunus heritage. The guanine in her skin could shift into just about any color, and everyone knew black went with everything.

“So is she like a lizard or something?” Ruby asked, echoing Blake’s inner thoughts. “Her freckles looked a little pebblier, and they changed color when her eyes did.”

“You noticed her _freckles_ change color?”

“I was kinda looking for _something,_ ” said Ruby, a bit bashfully. “I mean, I already knew she was a faunus, and she didn’t have a tail or different ears or anything, but if she’s like a chameleon or something, that would make a lot of sense…”

She trailed off, looking horrified with herself. “Oh, no, is that a bad question? Should I not have done that?”

“Probably not,” Blake said. “Sometimes it’s harder for people like her. She can pass for human better than I can, but only if she hides everything about herself that makes her who she is.”

“That… makes sense, actually.” Ruby nodded. “I’ll make sure not to do it again..”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a civil rights lecture.”

“No, no, I really do appreciate it. Now I know better.” She offered Blake another smile. “It’s like why you guys were ‘grr’ in the first place. Some things are worth fighting for.”

 

* * *

 

The clash of swords had become a nightly occurrence on the roof of Jinjur Hall, and most students tuned it out. It was no louder than the HVAC clusters, after all, and the falling temperatures meant that windows had a tendency to stay shut overnight by default.

Pyrrha pivoted on her heel and spun away from Jaune’s blade, stepping into his personal space and elbowing him in the stomach with the same motion. She could have easily continued the combo by snapping her wrist upwards, sending her own blade directly into his face, but she took a moment and waited to see what he did.

He took a step back and brought his sword and shield inward, closing up his defenses while he took a gasping breath. It was a sign of his improvement. Even a few weeks ago he would drop everything to recover after a blow like that, opening him up to a follow-up attack. It had cost him his last match against Cardin Winchester in Combat Training; Cardin had absolutely taken advantage of the opening.

Jaune gathered his breath, nodded once in thanks, then pressed his attack once more. He was more cautious this time, making sure not to overextend himself again. His stance was solid and he moved quickly from one position to the next without sliding out of place.

“You’ve improved so quickly,” Pyrrha remarked, catching his blade in the concave cutouts of her shield. “That move put you on the floor last time.”

“Just took practice,” said Jaune, his voice heavy and winded. His endurance still wasn’t up to an acceptable baseline, but that too was improving. Nora had pulled her aside one day to let her know that Jaune was joining her on her morning runs, and had recently stopped throwing up after the first mile.

Pyrrha extended her blade into a spear and hit the trigger. The barrel pointed away from the blade when it was in this configuration, and the recoil rocketed the weapon towards Jaune’s head at subsonic speeds. It was a move she avoided at the start of these training sessions, but his control of his Aura had become efficient enough in the last few weeks. He had it activated through all of their fights now, and it was starting to become a bit of work to break it.

She shouldn’t have even worried. Quick as a flash, Jaune brought his shield up and slapped the lance away, sending it careening over the side of the building. He took advantage of the opening and charged forward again, striking out before she could call it back to her hand. It was a great move.

It almost worked.

Pyrrha leapt backwards, gaining enough space to move, and reached out with her Semblance and _pulled._ Miló arced in mid-air, sailing back over the ledge just in time to catch Jaune at his trailing ankle as he started to press his advance. His legs locked at the obstruction, but his momentum carried him forward, tipping him over.

She kicked out, sending his topple into a twist. He flailed around as he fell beside her, his fingers catching her gorget and pulling her down with him. He hit the ground _hard_ , his head cracking against the gravel, sending off white-gold sparks as he landed. His Aura shimmered around his head as he laid there, crackling from the strain in ripples coursing outward from the point of impact, but it didn’t break.

Crimson sparks flashed around her own hands as she caught herself from the fall. She propped herself up, taking a moment to collect herself.

“Owwwww,” Jaune groaned. “That didn’t go so well.”

“That was amazing,” Pyrrha argued. “You defended yourself and disarmed me in the same motion, and took the opportunity to attack. That is a substantial improvement, Jaune, don’t sell yourself short.”

“Yeah, but your Semblance meant I should have been watching for the lance to come back. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She shook her head. “You forced me to use my Semblance in combat with you. I haven’t needed to do that this entire time.”

Jaune blinked. “...oh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Right! So now that you know, you can watch for it next time.”

The color drained from his face. “N-next time?”

Pyrrha nodded, allowing herself a devious grin. “Of course. Now that you’ve improved your reflexes, I’ll be fighting you that much harder. Pretty soon you’ll be able to face me going all out.”

“That’s not terrifying _at all._ ” Jaune sighed. “We should probably get up, though.”

Pyrrha froze, suddenly aware of their position. Of how Jaune was sprawled on the ground below her. Of how she was currently straddling him, breathing heavily from their fight, his face merely inches from her own—

Nope. Nothing to worry about. She was now standing three feet away, clutching her shield protectively, watching as Jaune rolled himself over to push himself upright. It was a perfectly normal reaction for a post-battle conversation, absolutely fine, we’re all fine here.

If Jaune noticed her sudden discomfort, he tactfully kept it to himself. He reached over to where his blade had fallen and resheathed it into his collapsed shield. “I think one concussion is enough for the evening, how about you?”

“I’m sorry,” said Pyrrha, almost on autopilot. “We can go to the infirmary and get it checked out if you like…?”

“No, I think I’m good. I just need to sit down for, like, a week.” Matching deed to word, he found a spot on the bench by the ledge, plopping down with all the grace of a Boarbatusk. “I can’t believe that worked. Knocking your spear out of the air like that, _whammo!_ ”

Pyrrha sat down beside him, adjusting her sash as she did. “Jaune, it’s okay to admit that you’ve gotten better. With all the work you’ve been putting in, it’s no wonder you made that block.”

He ran his fingers through his hair as he pulled a grimace. The strands caught the light of the street lamps in just the right way to reflect just the perfect shade of gold, teasing the strands into some manner of compliance as he brushed them out of his face.

“See, you keep saying that,” he said, staring off into the distance. “I don’t think that’s enough to make that big of a difference.”

“Jaune.”

“No, I mean it. I knocked your lance away because you threw it at me, and that’s one thing. You used your Semblance to trip me up, and I should have expected that, but I didn’t, and that’s fine, we’ll work on that later. But I shouldn’t have been able to knock you down with me.”

Pyrrha felt her face burning at the recollection. “I—wait, what do you mean? You tripped and fell, I was in the way…”

“Please, I’ve seen you dodge much faster than that. Remember when you took on both Ruby and Yang at once? They couldn’t even _touch_ you, and Ruby’s got that superspeed thing.” He slalomed his hand through the air, pantomiming Ruby darting back and forth across an imaginary arena. “And there’s nothing new with me, because I’ve been just as clumsy as ever and nothing ever gets you like that.”

He frowned and turned towards her. “Something’s bothering you.”

“I’m… really not sure what you mean,” Pyrrha said evasively.

“You’ve just been kinda distracted since semester started.” Jaune held up his arms, hands facing outwards in a conciliatory gesture. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine! I’m not going to push if you think it’s not my business. I know I haven’t had the greatest track record on checking in with my team, but I’ve been working on that, too. I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”

Oh. _That_ was what he meant.

It was true what he said, Pyrrha’s attention had been flagging in classroom lectures of late. It wasn’t enough to impact her grades, of course; her homework was always done ahead of time, and Pyrrha had _always_ tested well. And it was also true that the last few training sessions with Jaune had an undercurrent that she’d been avoiding, choosing instead to throw herself into their sparring entirely, letting the flow of battle drown away any errant thoughts. Apparently she hadn’t avoided it as well as she thought.

Trust Jaune Arc to make the right observation for the wrong reasons. She didn’t know whether she felt annoyed or relieved.

 _Don’t punish behavior you wanted to see._ Jaune was being a proper team leader, checking in with her, which meant he was paying attention to her wellbeing. Moreover, he was being a _friend._ She shouldn’t get frustrated just because it was suddenly inconvenient timing.

In any case, if anyone had earned the right to pry, it was Jaune. At this point, he was not her only friend, but he was the first one to accept her for who she was, not the image projected onto her. Her first and arguably closest friend, who saw her struggling with something that no one else could know about. Maybe no one else could even _understand._

She knew, beyond a single doubt, that if she told him to drop the subject? He would. Without complaint, without question. This was also the reason why she couldn’t bring herself to do just that.

“Do you remember,” she began, choosing her words slowly and carefully, “when Amber asked to talk to me alone?”

“The last day trip we had?” Jaune asked.

Pyrrha nodded. “Before I went back home for break. Amber told me a bit more about the work that she does, and offered me the chance to apprentice under her.”

Jaune beamed at her. “That’s fantastic! What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t take it?”

Pyrrha shook her head. “I didn’t give my answer. Not yet. She wanted me to think about it over break.”

“What’s there to think about?” Jaune asked. “It’s an amazing opportunity. To work with someone directly, gain experience… when you get your Huntress license, you’ll have your pick of assignments for sure.”

“It’s not that simple.” She sighed. “There’s… more to it than that. Her work is a bit more… specialized. The kinds of missions she does, the hours she keeps…”

Jaune frowned. “What kind of missions does she take, if she’s not a Huntress?”

“She… didn’t say, exactly. Just that she worked very closely with the Huntsman Academies in secret, and Professor Ozpin in particular.”

She fiddled with her blade, her fingers testing and retesting the safety catch on the transformation mechanism. “I get the feeling that if I take this, it might change everything. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

Jaune didn’t respond right away. His gaze dropped to the gravel under their feet, unfocused. Not averting his eyes, but processing what she said.

“Why would it mean that?” he asked eventually.

“I don’t know,” Pyrrha admitted. “She didn’t give me any specifics. Just talked about some of the things she does for Professor Ozpin, and where her job came from.”

_(What’s your favorite fairy tale?)_

It was hard, trying to quantify the reluctance she felt about the offer. She wanted to take it, of course; any opportunity to develop herself and her skills, to do everything she could to help other people? It wasn’t even a question.

“Why do you want to be a Huntsman?” she asked, trying a new tactic.

Jaune gave her a look of incredulity. “We talked about that before, remember? I wanted to be a hero, like my father, and his father, and _his_ father. This was the best way to do it.”

Pyrrha shook her head. “I mean why specifically a Huntsman? You could have gone to a combat school, joined the military, joined the police. They’re all heroes too.”

“Because a Huntsman is someone who will help anyone, it doesn’t matter where they live or how rich they are, or anything. There’s evil in the world, you fight it. It’s as simple as that.” He reached down and touched the hilt of his sword, almost absently, as if he was looking for reassurance. “And… I guess, I wanted to do it to prove that I could. That I was good enough to follow in their footsteps, but also that I could do it my own way? Does that make sense?”

“More than you realize,” said Pyrrha. “My entire life, I had opportunities. I had the best tutors, the best schools, the best sponsorships my parents could get for me. They all said I had a destiny, to be the very best, and I worked very hard to get where I am.”

She blinked, realizing that her voice had grown slightly bitter. “Not that I’m not thankful for all the opportunities. I’m where I am today because of them. It just always felt… they wanted me to be the best, so it felt like I _had_ to be the best, or else I was letting everyone down.”

She was watching Jaune carefully to see how he was reacting to all this. Anger flashed briefly in his eyes, but that went away quickly. “Family expectations,” he said, his voice heavy with sad recognition. “They wanted the best for you, so they didn’t stop to ask you what you actually did want.”

“I do want to be a Huntress,” Pyrrha clarified. “More than anything in this world. I want to help people, defend against the evils of the world. And I’m happy that my family is so supportive, don’t get me wrong. I just… they made the path available for me, so long as I followed that specific one.”

“I get that. But Pyrrha, what does Amber’s offer have to do with that?”

“It’s silly, I know.” Pyrrha let out a soft, rueful chuckle, shaking her head. “The choice is mine, for probably the first time in my life, how I want to fulfill my own destiny, and yet it still feels like if I don’t take this opportunity in front of me, I’d be letting everyone down. That I wouldn’t be doing everything in my power to be the best Huntress I could be. So I don’t know if I’m scared, or if I’m rebelling, but I don’t want to make that decision right now with that hanging over me.”

She looked up at him, fearful of what she might see in his expression, waiting for him to be disappointed in her. “It makes me sound selfish, doesn’t it?”

Jaune’s gaze was steady, unwavering. “A little. But why is that a bad thing?”

Pyrrha blinked. As was often the case with Jaune, she felt like she’d slipped the rails of the conversation a couple stations back and she wasn’t entirely sure what happened. “What?”

Jaune threw his hands into the air. “You’re _seventeen,_ Pyrrha. And you’ve never had a water balloon fight until now. You found out that I faked my transcripts to get into this school, and for some reason Ozpin put _me_ in charge of _you?_ And then what did you do? You gave up your evenings for _months_ to teach me how to fight.”

“I mean, you really needed it,” Pyrrha said, trying to catch up.

“That’s not the _point._ The point is, you’re the most unselfish person I know, and you’re a _teenager._ If anyone deserves to have a little bit of selfishness once in a while, it’s you.”

Pyrrha tilted her head, trying to make sense of that statement. “I… guess so? But I don’t want to _be_ selfish, Jaune.”

Jaune waved his arms wildly. “Forget I said the word selfish, then. It’s not selfish to want to do things for you.”

“That’s kind of exactly what that means.”

“Not at the expense of your own happiness! Look, it’s stressing you out, we can both agree on that. When does she want you to give her an answer by?”

“The start of the Festival,” said Pyrrha. “She doesn’t want to stay close to Beacon while it’s going, so she wants an answer before then.”

“That gives you a few weeks,” Jaune said. “Okay, so the dance is technically the start of the Festival, right? The Tournament isn’t until after finals, and that’s after the dance, but we’ll say that’s the deadline.”

Pyrrha nodded. “Sure.”

“So that gives you at least three more weeks. You don’t need to actually think about it until then.”

“How am I supposed to not think about it?” she asked, frowning at him.

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Jaune grinned at her. “In combat, I am but a student, but when it comes to procrastination, I am the _master._ I will teach you how to kick back, relax, and leave this and other questions for Future Pyrrha to deal with.”

Pyrrha narrowed her eyes. “How is that going to help?”

“Because you’ll be relaxed and able to come at it with a fresh mind. And that means,” Jaune added, leaning in conspiratorially, “that whatever your answer is, it’s _your_ answer. Whether you say yes or no, you’re doing it for _you._ ”

That… that actually did make a lot of sense. And it _would_ be nice not to have this hanging over her head for the next three weeks. “Okay, but I just have one issue with this,” she said.

Jaune grinned. “The fact that you only have one means that you’re thinking about it, and that’s really all I wanted.”

“I’m serious,” she said, but she couldn’t stop from smiling while she did. “What am I going to distract myself with for the three whole weeks until the dance? Tell me that, oh grand master of slacking.”

“You said it yourself,” Jaune countered. “The dance.”

Pyrrha froze, once again suddenly aware of how close Jaune was to her. “The… dance?”

“Yeah!” He leaned in and threw an arm over her shoulders, gesturing with his other hand at something that neither of them could see. “Pyrrha, I will make it my life’s goal to make sure that in three weeks time, you _will_ have a date to the dance.”

Oh. A date to the...

…. _oh._

...oh.

 

* * *

 

Ilia shifted on the bed in their temporary quarters. The guest dorms at Beacon weren’t any different than the normal student lodgings, and thus was far more spacious than she’d been expecting. Still, it was hard to get comfortable.

In the corner of her vision, Neo waved to get her attention, then gestured to the other bed.

“No, this one’s fine. They’re just way too soft. I spent the last few years sleeping on a bedroll on the ground.” Ilia shifted again, trying to force herself to stop feeling like she was going to sink straight through to the ground.

Neo shrugged and went back to her scroll, her fingers tapping away at high speed. Some of those were status updates to Torchwick, Ilia knew, but there were too many soft _pings_ from the scroll for that to be all she wrote.

Ilia rolled back onto her side and pondered the next step. “Accidentally” running into Blake wasn’t part of the original assignment, but when she suggested it to Adam, he practically jumped at the chance. She didn’t think she’d have needed to persuade him to change the plan, of course, but the list of demands he’d given her made her feel a bit… awkward about it. Enough so that she had the second copy of the report ready and waiting to go, but she held off on sending it.

It was rough, seeing Blake again so soon. When the first text came through a few weeks ago, Ilia had almost deleted it right then and there. Blake had left. She’d _left,_ and now here she was, breaking bread with the enemy. Teammates with a _Schnee,_ of all people. As if she didn’t know everything that they did, everything that her brothers and sisters had fought and died for.

Ilia’s scroll beeped. One new message. If it was Blake again, after just seeing her at the library…

It was not from Blake. “Neo,” Ilia groaned, “I’m right here, you don’t need to text me from the same room.”

_**I can’t talk to you when you’re facing the other way.** _

“Oh. Right, sorry.” She turned over to find Neo staring at her placidly from the desk. “What?”

Neo’s fingers flashed through the air. Atlesian Sign Language was something Ilia had made a point to learn early on in the White Fang; it was a good method of silent communication on missions, and sometimes faunus would develop enlarged fangs or some other aspect that prevented easy speech. The fact that most arrogant humans never bothered to learn it unless they personally needed it was just a bonus, as far as they were concerned.

“I have it under control,” said Ilia. “It was just a shock seeing her so soon. I’m fine.”

Neo simply pointed.

Ilia glanced down and saw that her hands had not only clenched into fists at the thought, but were a bright shade of Flame Dust red.

She sighed and forced herself to relax. The bright color rippled away, replaced by a more soothing green. Her colors weren’t always tied to her moods, but sometimes it just helped to make a few associations for her own benefit. It helped to ground her.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, more calmly this time. “Just let me deal with that part. Where’s Torchwick with the rest of it?”

Neo rolled her eyes and held up her scroll. The latest White Fang rally had been held at their warehouse, and recruitment was swelling. The only problem was that they didn’t stay in the city after that; Torchwick had other plans, and he was using faunus labor to make it happen.

“I really don’t like this,” she said, not for the first time. “I don’t know why Adam’s going along with this human plot.”

Neo just stared.

“I know, I know. There are wheels within wheels.” Ilia groaned. “It’s better for us in the long run. I just… we met with Merlot already. Didn’t he skeeve you out?”

Neo raised her arms and shuffled forward, her head lolling back on her shoulders.

“That’s what I’m saying. Grimm are monsters, but the things he’s doing to them, that’s not natural.”

A shrug, and Neo went back to her scroll. Which, really, was all the answer Ilia needed.

It didn’t matter. Not in the short term, at least. Monsters were monsters, and bad things happened to monsters. Especially when the monsters wore human faces. That was what she believed in, and that was what Adam Taurus promised.

Ilia turned over and went back to her own messages. Monsters would get what they deserved. Every last vicious, murdering, traitorous one of them.

 

* * *

**Beacon Student Registry  
** _Vytal Festival Registration_

 **Name:** Blake Belladonna  
**Age:** 17  
**Class:** First-year  
**Team:** RWBY

**Huntsman-Track Qualifications:**

Combat certification – Private  
Non-Kingdom Entrance Exam – Top Marks  
Beacon Initiation – White Knight

 **Registered Weapon:** Mantle Industries Ballistic Chain Scythe [Modified] – _Designation: Gambol Shroud_

 **Semblance Classification:** Projection – Shadow Clones

Blake Belladonna can coalesce her Aura into a temporary shell. This shell takes the form of the Huntress, occupying a physical space. This shadow clone dissipates when struck, unable to keep its form upon contact with an outside force. If no force is applied, the length of time the clone lasts is directly linked to how much Aura is used in its generation.

As these clones occupy a physical space, Ms. Belladonna is summarily ejected from the area with moderate force. The positioning of the clone determines the effect on her trajectory.

The extent to which Blake Belladonna controls these clones is currently undisclosed.

 **Combat Specialization:** Scout (primary), Striker (secondary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming to Ironwood's TED Talk.


	18. Best Served Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That feel when work has changed three times in the last two months, and it's about to change again.

“Alright, let’s run through it again.”

Yang leaned forward over the table, supporting herself by her hands placed on either side of the schematics rolled out between them. Across from her, Weiss stood attentively, a collapsible pointer currently extended in her hands.

“There are three entrances to focus on,” said Weiss, tapping them with the pointer as she talked. “North, south, and west. Guards at the north, checking identification. Two more posted at the south, to prevent access to the rest of the building.”

“And the upper level?” Yang asked, staring at it.

“The balcony is watched but left alone. Most of the focus will be on the lower level.”

Yang nodded, looking over the plans. “We should focus on the power cables here, here, and here.”

“Why that one?”

“Line of sight. This pillar hides it from view, so we have clear access without anyone noticing.”

“Are you sure?” Weiss asked, frowning. “There’s going to be a lot of foot traffic in this area.”

“That’s what the fog machine is for,” said Yang. “Stick that under the table there, and nobody will see the cables, which leaves us free to set up the stage over _here._ ”

“We don’t _need_ a fog machine,” Weiss said for probably the tenth time that evening. “This is a formal, not a… a… a _rave._ ”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “Do you even _know_ what a rave is?”

Weiss sniffed. “I just mean it’s not going to be the kind of dance that ends with you blowing up an _international crime syndicate._ ”

“Is that what you think happens at raves?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”

“I’m not really convinced you actually know what a rave is.”

There was a muffled beep as the door unlocked, and Ruby burst into their room. She dropped her backpack at the foot of her bed and leapt onto Yang’s back. She wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders and neck and let her feet dangle off the ground. “Yaaaaaaaang you would not _believe_ who Blake and I ran into at the library oh hey what are you guys doing?”

“Team CFVY’s mission is running long,” said Yang, pretending to shake Ruby off her back. “They’re sort of the unofficial event committee, and Coco apparently named Weiss as her backup if she wasn’t available.”

“Coco is a woman of exquisite taste,” said Weiss, holding her head high, “and she recognizes my own talent in social aesthetics.”

“Ooo, that sounds pretty cool!” Ruby enthused. She then lifted herself up further so that she could stage whisper into Yang’s ear. “What does that mean in non-Weiss-Speak?”

“It means we’re in charge of planning the school dance ahead of the Vytal Festival,” said Yang, who was never one to miss a beat. “I’m trying to sell the Princess on fog machines. She doesn’t think they’re ‘classy enough’.”

Ruby dropped down off of Yang’s back. “Didn’t you have fog machines up in Atlas?”

“Father never bothered,” Weiss clarified. “Our ballroom was elegant and refined. We had string quartets instead of any sort of popular music, even if…”

She trailed off, frowning to herself.

“Even if what?” Ruby prompted.

“Even if I really wanted something different, I suppose.” Weiss shook her head. “Those parties were more for him than anyone else, really.”

“Well, this one’s not for him,” said Yang. “It’s for us! And the other students from all over. And _they_ like popular music, and they also like fog machines.”

“They’re not bad,” Blake added from over by her bed. She must have come in behind Ruby without anyone noticing, because both Yang and Weiss gave a start at her sudden contribution.

“You can hide them under the buffet table or the stage if you’re worried about them being seen,” she continued, leaning over and pointing at the locations on the map. “And they really add sort of an enchanted fairytale kind of vibe.”

“There you go, Weiss!” Ruby added, her voice taking on a persuasive sing-song cadence. “Enchanted fairytale. It’s got a ring to it~”

Weiss sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Nn. Alright. Yang gets fog machines, but only if I get doilies for the highboy tables.”

Yang slammed her right fist into her left palm excitedly. “Excellent, you won’t regret it. They really add just the right amount of punch.”

Ruby blinked. “Oh, speaking of punch...”

“Don’t worry, there will be pre-spiked and post-spiked versions. Everyone who turns up will be able to turn up to their own comfort level.”

_“Yang, no!”_

 

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen  
** **Best Served Cold**

* * *

 

It was not unexpected to find an abandoned island this close to Vale, especially one with extant infrastructure. Remnant was full of ruins. It was the eternal mystery of the world, and one that informed the development of oral and written history. Ancient cities, temples, and palaces, each with their own distinctive style, each abandoned to time. The world was a remnant of what it once was, a relic of a past civilization that existed and thrived right up until the point where they didn’t.

It was somewhat disconcerting to think that there was an entire age of man and faunus lost to time, which was why most people didn’t think about it at all. Ancient ruins were just a fact of life, part of how the Kingdoms were structured. Aside from the expeditions funded by private investors or the Atlas military, people generally lived their lives. Crumbling palaces were avoided, roads between cities were either abandoned or repaired for modern use, and life went on.

Ruins were ancient. This island, however, was not. Technically, it was also a relic from a forgotten past, but that past could be measured in decades, rather than millennia.

Emerald picked her way across the rusted loading dock. Nature had started to reclaim the area somewhat, with the creeping vines crossing the walls and the stubborn brush taking root in cracks in the concrete, but despite the presence of actual people, the island was still a working one. No sooner had they exited the airship than dozens of mechanized attendants swooped down onto it, refueling the tanks and unloading the Dust from the cargo hold. Automated carts stacked themselves with crates before turning right around and heading for the base, hidden between the cliffs.

She didn’t get too close to the automatons. They weren’t as dilapidated as the docks, but each of them were spattered with the glowing green waste that arose from the good Doctor’s experimentations. She’d seen what it did to the Grimm he tested it on, and she had no desire to find out what would happen if any got on her.

Perhaps “abandoned” was too generous a word for the island. It would be more accurate to call it _diseased, festering, left to rot_.

“It smells like Schist,” Emerald said, crinkling her nose.

Mercury thrust his arms in front of him, gesticulating towards an imaginary sign. “Thank you! I’ve been saying that since we landed.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean the city. Schist.” She rolled her eyes at Mercury’s blank expression. “In Vacuo? Where I’m _from?_ ”

“Did you just not clean up after your camels or something?”

“Ugh. Why am I even talking to you?” Emerald hopped over a section of wall, crumbled in the path away from the beach. “A lot of the buildings were old shipping containers, stacked end to end. It smelled like salt, rust, and oil, and I _hated it._ ”

“So you’re saying you feel right at home.” Mercury hopped over to her side, effortlessly making the jump across a greasy patch that she had been careful to avoid

“I’m _saying,_ why are we even here?”

Cinder, a few paces ahead of them, stopped in her tracks. She turned around slowly, fixing Emerald with a glare that sent a chill down her spine. “Are you questioning my orders?” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Emerald froze. “No! Not questioning. I just… was wondering about the reasons behind it. For my own peace of mind,” she added quickly.

“Yeah, not that I’m not grateful to the Doc,” Mercury added, standing on his right leg and stretching out his left, “but weren’t you and Miss Change-o here not too long ago?”

“The good doctor has lent us the aid of his facilities,” Cinder reminded them. “And he’s been well compensated for the trouble. That affords him new opportunities, new avenues for…”

She glanced around at their surroundings, noting the new sludge pipes and shuffling maintenance bots. “... _growth._ ”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Mercury asked.

“Potentially,” said Cinder. She turned back to the path and continued towards the base at the island’s center. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t responded to the last check-in, and that’s made our benefactors unhappy.”

Emerald fell into step behind Cinder, relieved that her leader’s ire was no longer directed at her.

Beside her, Mercury did the same. “So we’re bringing the hammer down already? That seems a bit fast.”

Cinder shook her head. “Not at all,” she said, amusement evident in her voice. “His new project is just as helpful to our plans as the rest of it. We’re simply here to remind him of his priorities.”

 

* * *

 

“The winner is Yang Xiao Long,” Professor Goodwitch said, making a note on her scroll. The screen projected on the wall behind her changed, removing Yang and Ren’s faces from the display.

Yang took a moment to help Lie Ren to his feet. He grasped her hand confidently, allowing her to pull him up off the ground. That was one of the things she liked most about Ren, the fact that he acknowledged her strength without making a big deal about it. Any other guy would have at least tried to make it seem like he was pulling himself up with his own power, using her arm merely as leverage, but Ren didn’t care about any of that.

His talents weren’t in brute strength, and they both knew it. It’s what made him such a great sparring partner.

“Try not to destroy the stage next time,” Goodwitch added, not even bothering to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She waved her weird riding crop wand at the shattered flooring, directing the pieces back into place and letting the Dust embedded in the wood fuse back together.

“No promises,” said Yang. She gave the professor a wink and took a standing leap up to the bleachers.

Combat Training was held in the small field house at the edge of campus, on the other side of the auditorium. A school full of teenagers and young adults was volatile enough; add live weapons and superpowers to the mix, and sectioning off the buildings for physical education sounded less like an oversight and more like proper damage control. The same school of thought applied to the seating in the arena; the bleachers were high off the ground and angled in such a way to minimize friendly fire from stray shots.

It made it more fun to vault up over the barrier.

“That puts me at 5-7 now, doesn’t it?” she asked, once Ren made his way up the steps.

“6-7,” he corrected. “You caught me off-guard with a water balloon.”

Yang scoffed at him. “Whaaaaat? No way, that was team versus team, we shouldn’t count that.”

Nora leaned forward onto Ren’s shoulders as he sat down on the bleachers in front of her. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to count me _creaming you into the stratosphere._ ”

“It was a lucky shot,” Yang said. “Anyway, I’m charging you one point because _I’m_ the only one that had to clean Ozpin’s office window afterwards.”

Jaune blinked up at her. “Wait, Glynda couldn’t take care of it with her Semblance?”

“Oh, she _could have,_ ” said Yang, leaving it at that. Nobody inquired further.

Ren cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself. “Today’s match was exceptionally close.”

“I know, right?” Yang slammed her fist into her palm. “Best we’ve had yet. I finally have a counter for your pressure point attacks.”

“The important thing is you believe that,” said Ren, turning his attention back to the center ring, where Goodwitch was about to call for the next match.

That was the other thing she appreciated about being sparring partners with Ren. He encouraged her banter while still calling her out on her bullshit. Kept her on her toes both on and off the mat. He was a real treasure, that one.

“Seriously, dude, what the shit? So uncool.”

Yang turned around to see the source of the commotion, already knowing what she was going to find.

Sure enough, the delinquent of team CRDL had crowded around a girl in an Atlas uniform. She had her hands up in a futile attempt to block the balled up wads of paper they were throwing at her. One of them was stuck between the multicolored streaks in her hair.

“What’s the deal, Colors?” taunted Cardin from behind the girl, flicking another wad of paper at her. It bounced off her tail, which was thrashing back and forth in annoyance. “I thought you were supposed to have those cat-like reflexes.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Yang could see Blake bristling. It was all that she could do to stop herself from going over there to make sure she was okay, but she didn’t want to call attention to Blake any more than she had to.

Herself, though… Yang was perfectly fine with calling attention to herself.

“Hey, Winchester,” she called, keeping her voice pitched low to keep Professor Goodwitch from overhearing. “Finally ran of Beacon people to torment, so now you’re moving on to foreign students? I’d say ‘how the mighty have fallen’, but you’d have had to be a decent person to start with.”

The faunus girl took the opportunity to scooch away from the boys, now that their attention was firmly on Yang.

“You scared her away, Xiao Long,” said Cardin. “We were just introducing ourselves, all friendly-like.”

“Uh huh. I can really see how friendly you’ve been.” Yang made a note of how many balled up wads of paper littered the stands around them. “I haven’t seen you make any introductions to the other visitors.”

“What’s it to you, Blondie?” Cardin glared at her, his voice going from sinuous and feigning innocence to low and threatening. “Just keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you.”

His teammates visibly paled, glancing back and forth between him and Yang. “Uh… Cardin, that’s Yang,” said Russel, as conciliatory as possible. “You don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Yang smiled sweetly at Russel. He _flinched._

“He’s not going to bother with Yang,” said Blake from a couple rows down. She was sitting with her Haven friend, Ilia, who was watching all of this go down with a dark look in her eyes. “Cardin prefers targets he thinks people will look the other way on, like faunus.”

Behind her, Ilia’s quiet teammate looked on with wide eyes. She took a sip from her bottle of water, apparently enraptured by the commotion.

“You want to do something about it,” Cardin growled, “then go ahead. But you won’t. You’ll just sit there on your high horses like you’re so much better.”

Russel, Sky, and Dove slid down the bleachers, attempting to put some distance between them and Cardin.

“As fascinating as your conversation must be,” Professor Goodwitch’s voice rang out, interrupting whatever Yang was going to say in return, “I do in fact have a class to run. Is someone going to volunteer for the next fight, or am I going to have to pick?”

Yang grinned even wider. This was going to be fun.

Down the bleachers, Ilia started to rise. She was also grinning, but her smile was different than Yang’s. It was less of a happy smile and more of someone specifically showing all of her teeth.

Neither of them made it to their feet. Neo made a point to catch both Yang and Ilia’s eyes as she stood, patting the air in front of her to signal that she had this handled.

“Are you sure?” Ilia asked, almost too quiet for Yang to hear.

Neo nodded, then made a show of looking at her wrist where a watch might have been had she been wearing one. _This won’t take long._

“Excellent,” said Professor Goodwitch. “It will be very educational for my students to see the training you receive in Haven. Let me just find a proper opponent for you—”

Neo held up a hand, interrupting Goodwitch mid-sentence. She rotated on her heel and pointed directly at team CRDL.

“Alright,” said Goodwitch, pulling up their information on her scroll. “Which of team CRDL do you wish to fight?”

Neo’s smile widened. She held up her hand, four fingers outstretched.

Yang revised her mental estimation of the girl a few more places upward. Four. Neo wanted to fight all four at once, without any hesitation. If she wasn’t being massively overconfident in her abilities, that meant that she had the skill to back it up; either way, Yang had a lot of respect for her.

 

* * *

 

_I know what you’re doing,_ Ilia thought as Neo picked her way down the bleachers.

It was her own fault. They were supposed to keep a low profile, and she’d nearly blown it. Could anyone blame her, though? Oafish humans bullying a faunus in broad daylight and in open view of the people who should be in charge.

...which was why Neo was the one who stood up first. She was detached from the situation, and could keep her cool a lot better than Ilia could. Neo had beaten her to the punch because if she hadn’t, Ilia might have made an example of the racist assholes.

Damn it. The point of infiltrating the school was to be just visible enough that people accepted their presence without attracting too much attention.

She knew what Neo was doing, but she didn’t have to like it.

The blonde dropped into Neo’s vacated seat next to her. “Four against one, huh? Think she’s got a chance?”

“If she was Pyrrha, maybe,” said Blake, sitting on Ilia’s other side. “Maybe two of us, on a good day.”

“Which two?”

Blake shrugged. “Take your pick.”

Ilia leaned back, propping herself on her elbows against the bleacher row behind her. “Watch closely, ladies. You might learn something.”

With that, she settled in to watch the show, paying no attention to the stage-whispered _“Oh, I like her”_ coming from her left.

 

* * *

 

Neo stepped gingerly off the edge of the stands, popping open her parasol to glide gently into the ring. It was black lace with white accents, like the sleeveless blouse and ruffled skirt she currently wore. She twirled it around, letting it come to a rest atop her bare shoulder, and gave a polite smile to her opponents.

The four children who thought themselves a “brute squad” sauntered down to the ring to meet her, taking their sweet time. Why would they hurry? They were four big bad boys about to lay the beatdown on a sweet, unassuming opponent who barely came up to their armpits. To approach her in a timely fashion would be to show her respect and acknowledge her as a worthy challenge, and for team CRDL, there was no such thing.

“This may be a special match,” said the blonde professor as she set up the display on her scroll, “but this is going to be by the book. If I call the match, you need to _stop._ Did you hear me, Mr. Winchester?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the brute as he unlimbered his warhammer. “You don’t need to tell us twice.”

“Historically speaking, I absolutely do.” Goodwitch made one final adjustment and Neo’s Aura level joined the other boys’ meters on the overhead projection. It was purely percentage based, with a “safety” threshold marked in red at the 10% mark. There were no other metrics involved in the display, a fact that Neo was thankful for, if only to avoid certain uncomfortable questions.

Neo’s smile widened as the boys arranged themselves around her in a loose circle. She bowed to Goodwitch to signal she was ready, then took in the full scope of her opponents. They varied in body type and weaponry, but they all deferred to the biggest, most heavily armed and armored one. He was the leader.

She turned her back to him and shifted her stance. To face him at the start of combat would be to show him respect and acknowledge him as a worthy challenge.

For Neo, there was no such thing.

The grumble of irritation from behind her sparked a brief surge of joy. She kept the other three boys in her line of sight, letting them see her stand casually with her parasol on her shoulder, the image of graceful disdain. To a man they towered over her, but she looked down on every single one of them.

“Ready?” Goodwitch raised her arm over her head, preparing to sweep it down to declare the start of the match. She opened her mouth—

Neo would have been ready for it even if the Brute Squad hadn’t given it away. Their eyes tracked the sudden movement behind her, their gleeful smirks spoke volumes to their chosen strategy. But she’d clocked them the moment she laid eyes on them. The attack was never a matter of when, but from what angle – and it was an angle she chose when she put her back to their leader.

Winchester’s mace came up and around in a burst of speed that might have taken any of the other children by surprise. The shortened handle made it a one-handed weapon, trading power for reach and speed, but as a Huntsman he still had plenty of power to put into the swing. The bladed flanges were designed to pierce the armor of Grimm skullmasks – or, some might argue, the Aura of mortal opponents – while the increased weight provided the necessary force to cave in the side of Neo’s head…

Well, it would have, if she’d been there to take the hit.

Her illusory construct scattered across the floor, shattered like glass into hundreds of quickly dissolving pieces. The boys gawked at the crumbling shards of pink Aura for a moment too long – a tactical error that Neo exploited. The crook of her parasol darted out to snag Sky’s halberd, locking the weapons together with a quick twist. She rotated on her heel and pulled down over her shoulder, wrenching the boy’s arm awkwardly around as he tried to keep his grip.

This also served to shield herself from immediate retaliation, since her diminutive profile fit completely behind his flailing arms and broad shoulders. His teammates would either have to try to circle around to flank her, or—

“W-wait, Cardin! _You’re aiming for me!_ ”

Neo sighed. Option Two, then. She disengaged from the weapon lock and hip-checked Sky towards the advancing Winchester, fixing a placid smile on her face as she watched them collide.

 

* * *

 

Blake leaned forward as she watched Cardin shove Sky off him. “She’s just standing there,” she said, as much to herself as to Ilia. “Leaving herself wide open again. That can’t work twice.”

“Against most people, sure” said Yang dismissively. “I wouldn’t be so sure about these guys.”

Blake narrowed her eyes as she searched for what the trick was. There had to be a reason why she was giving them the opportunity to circle around her. Physical illusions were useful only until the enemy learned to expect them, after all. They could still be useful, of course; split-second distractions and misdirects… but that was in the heat of battle, not standing still while your opponent stared at you. Something else had to be up.

Down below, Cardin seemed to be thinking the same thing, having changed from a blind charge to a slow and careful advance. He covered it by swinging his mace threateningly as he walked, but Blake could tell by the way his free arm was drawn inward and the sureness of his footing that he was playing it safe.

At some unspoken word, Dove and Russel launched themselves at Neo, their three blades poised to skewer her from all sides. Neo simply took a step backwards to give herself some space, collapsed her parasol, and struck them both in the temples with a pair of quick thrusts. This was enough to disorient them mid-lunge – neither boy was able to stop in time, and they crashed into each other.

Neo twirled once as she backed up another step, reversing her grip on her parasol and holding it behind her back, displaying the use of only one free hand. She made eye contact with Cardin and used her free hand to casually adjust her hair.

Not once during the entire exchange did that soft mocking smile leave her face.

Dove dashed forward to engage Neo one-on-one. She leaned around his strikes, keeping one hand on her hip and the other clasped to the small of her back, still keeping her weapon out of the fight. Every strike was matched by a twist of her shoulders or a step to the side, pulling her out of the way of Dove’s gunblade by mere inches at the most.

“She’s used to fighting more than one person at a time,” said Yang, sitting up straighter in her chair.

“What makes you say that?” Ilia responded.

“After that first move, she’s made a point to keep all four of them in her field of view,” said Yang, pointing. “Watch, Sky’s going to try to circle around her while Dove keeps her occupied. She’s going to need to deal with that fast.”

Even as she said that, Sky started circling around to Neo’s right while Dove kept her attention focused to the left. She darted back at an angle, keeping both in front of her, but quickly came up against the wall of the arena.

“She’s pinned herself,” said Blake. “They’ve got her at a disadvantage.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Ilia teased.

Blake frowned at her. “I’m not saying she can’t get out of it, but she’s only got two directions to move and they’re closing in.”

“Blake’s right,” said Yang, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands in front of her face. She’d abandoned her carefree slouch and was wholly invested in the fight now. “She’ll need to power her way through the gap.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ilia said. “Just watch.”

Dove lunged again with his sword, coming in from her left to leave her nowhere to go but towards Sky, whose halberd covered a much wider range. They both tensed up with the strike, waiting for her inevitable dodge, but Dove’s triumphant grin melted in terror as his blade passed right through Neo’s chest and came out the other side.

The gasps of shock from the audience nearly drowned out the crash of pink Aura as that body, too, shattered and dissolved, leaving Dove pinned to the wall, trying desperately to dislodge it from the wooden column.

Sky brought his weapon up instinctually, catching the collapsed parasol scant inches from his face. The clang of metal echoed through the space as Neo went on the offensive for the first time since the fight began.

Yang leaned back with satisfaction. “Called it. Powered through the gap.”

“I didn’t say she wouldn’t,” said Ilia. “Just that it was incorrect to say that Neo was ever at a disadvantage.”

Sky swept the blade of his halberd low, hoping to catch Neo across the knees. She leapt over and thrust the tip of her parasol straight at his face, forcing him backwards. She continued to press the attack, jabbing again and again at his unprotected head, until Sky managed to bring the shaft up in a two-handed block.

_Fwoomph!_

The parasol opened directly in front of his face, startling him – and covering Neo’s next move. She flipped over his head, collapsed the canopy once again, and reversed it to catch the shaft of the halberd in the hook. With the weight of her body falling behind him, she yanked forward to toss him and his weapon down the hallway, effectively sending him out of bounds.

A bell rang, and Sky’s projection on the scoreboard faded out. The words **RING OUT** appeared across his picture.

A cheer erupted from the stands, quickly silenced with a glare from Professor Goodwitch. Blake frowned; she was enjoying the beatdown-by-proxy, but something was tugging at the back of her mind and she couldn’t figure out what it was.

 

* * *

 

Dove finally wrenched his blade free from the wall and levelled it at Neo. He took a few potshots at her, not so much aiming as laying down covering fire to distract and put her on the defensive.

For a third time, his attacks passed through an illusion. Neo hadn’t been on that side of the arena since making the ringout. It was interesting to see what they’d do with the same trick over and over again – falling for it twice was a gift, but three times? Three times was just sad.

None of the shots landed, so she didn’t need to break the illusion. Instead, her mirror image winked and struck a taunting pose.

Dove and Russel fell for the bait. Winchester, however, did not. He’d been watching and waiting the entire fight, ever since that opening salvo, and right now his eyes were narrowed at the illusion.

Right before his teammates closed in, Winchester spun around, scanning the area behind him. He’d figured it out.

“You won’t get me like that again,” he growled, raising his mace above his head. “You’ve got some neat tricks, but you’re no match for us.”

Neo held back on her ambush; he was preparing something, and she didn’t want to get caught in it.

A burst of Fire Dust accompanied his downswing, smashing into the concrete. A curtain of fire rapidly expanded from the point of impact. Neo vaulted over it, clearing it easily. Her Aura-fueled copy didn’t fare nearly as well, disappearing in the burst of flame.

Cardin’s attention snapped to her, now that she was no longer shrouded by her Semblance. “There you are.” With that, he charged.

He was fast, faster than she’d anticipated. Usually the big burly ones were built more for power than speed, but Cardin managed to keep a balance between the two that made him dangerous. Student or not, one hit from that mace would shatter what remained of her Aura. His size gave him reach, which meant she needed to put herself into his range to strike back.

Oh no. A tall opponent with reach. However was she going to deal with this?

She allowed her smile to widen, going from “porcelain doll” to “feral glee”. It was a look she knew unsettled people, especially when she shifted her eyes to a bright, almost glowing red. It helped that she wasn’t putting on a show anymore – this was going to be _fun_.

 

* * *

 

Every second the fight went on, Yang found herself getting more and more drawn in to the spectacle. It wasn’t just the tiny girl from Haven handing team CRDL their collective asses on a dainty silver platter – although that certainly was a nice bonus. No, it was the sheer _artistry_ that Neo displayed.

Every attack they made was countered. Not just defended against; _turned aside._ A block expended energy: to counter the force applied with an attack, you needed an equal amount to cancel it out. Action/reaction. Yang’s own Semblance supplied this inertial compensation, channeling the kinetic energy into her very Aura itself, allowing her to add the force to her own counterattacks.

Parrying and dodging were far more economical, and that seemed to be the entirety of Neo’s fighting style. Just enough force to turn an attack away, or to not be physically in its path.

In some ways, fighting larger groups of enemies was _easier_ than a one-on-one battle. Yang knew this from experience. The more combatants there were focusing on one target, the more they got in their own way. They had to be careful where they swung their weapons, lest they hit one of their own companions, but the single fighter had no such restrictions. The environment was rich with targets, and Yang was frequently spoiled for choice.

It was fascinating to see Neo take that concept and refine it. No longer keeping all her opponents in front of her, she stayed roughly in the center of all three of them. If she wasn’t outright ducking and weaving through their assaults, she was redirecting them, ensuring that each of Cardin’s wide swings, Dove’s shots, or Russel’s lunges were turned towards each other.

Yang let out a low whistle. “Alright, color me impressed.”

Blake’s ears twitched under her bow. “I know that tone of voice, Yang. Don’t do it.”

“What? I didn’t say _anything._ ”

Blake gave her a Look. “This is the Nevermore all over again.”

Yang held a scandalized hand over her chest. “Blake Belladonna, are you suggesting that my interest in this fight is anything more than a casual observation? I’ll have you know that I’m appreciating this from a professional standpoint. I just _really wanted_ to fight the Nevermore.”

“A professional standpoint.”

“Look, the last time I fought more than two people at a time, they had to rebuild the whole nightclub.” Yang gestured to where Cardin was in the middle of plowing through Dove to get to Neo. “This girl makes it look easy, and the only property damage has been incidental.”

“I’m not sure that helps your case.”

“She’s keeping them on the offensive and tiring them out. It’s almost _textbook._ I kind of want to get her autograph right now.”

Blake nodded and turned back to the fight. Dove was struggling to get to his feet, but it didn’t look like he’d make it before Russel landed on top of him, himself being launched into the air by another Dust explosion from Cardin’s mace. “Also, you want to fight her.”

_“So bad.”_

Ilia, still caught between them, gave Yang another once-over. “Even after seeing her wipe the floor with those racists?”

Yang nodded emphatically. “ _Especially_ after. She’s not doing anything I haven’t really seen before – Ruby’s faster, Weiss is about as graceful, and Blake has her own illusions – but I’ve never seen them combined quite like that. I think I could give her a run for her money, at the very least.”

The bell rang twice more. Russel and Dove’s pictures faded, each overlaid with **KO**.

“And when that happens?” Ilia gestured to where the two boys were crumpled over each other, singed and still trailing wisps of smoke from the last explosion.

“Then I learn what I did wrong and fix it for next time.” Yang jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards where Ren, Nora, and Jaune sat, themselves transfixed by the spectacle. “Getting your ass kicked by someone better than you is the best way to benchmark your own progress. My record with Ninjafists over there is 5-7, and every time we fight I try something new. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s the whole fun of learning, isn’t it?”

“6-7,” Ren corrected from all the way over there. “Water fight counts.”

“Ninjafists also has excellent hearing,” Yang added, completely unfazed at being overheard..

Ilia stared at her for a moment. It was slightly uncomfortable – Yang felt not so much that she was being measured up, but rather _evaluated._

“Well, you’ll probably get your chance to fight,” she said eventually.

“We’ll meet in the tournament,” agreed Yang, bringing her hands together to tap her knuckles into her bare palm. “Bet on it.”

Ilia continued to stare just a little too long. Yang wasn’t sure if it was a lizard thing or a protective former friend thing – she wasn’t going to be the one to ask, at least not in public – but she felt a traitorous stab of relief when the girl turned back to the match at hand. “Definitely,” she said. “The tournament.”

Down below, Neo was circling around Cardin, the wicked grin only widening further. To his credit, he still had his mace in a defensive position, but the fight was definitely starting to get to him. He was making mistakes, overextending himself, and Neo punished him dearly for each one.

It was interesting to watch the progression of emotions on his face as he shifted from wary to nervous, then moved all the way over to furiously belligerent (or perhaps belligerently furious) as he took one last charge. Flipping a switch in the hilt, he activated every last bit of Dust in his mace and brought it down onto Neo as hard as he could.

The explosion rocked the stands, even with the dampeners built into the stadium.

Alone he stood on the shattered ground, taking heavy breaths and wiping sweat off his brow. “And that’s match,” he said, swinging his mace back up onto his shoulder.

A dainty black-gloved hand reached out and pushed his elbow slightly as he brought his weapon up, adjusting his movement just enough for Cardin to clip the side of his own head with the follow-through. He went down like a sack of bricks, the crackle of his Aura sputtering as he fell and finally giving out altogether.

The bell rang, and Neo stood in the center of destruction, the four members of CRDL strewn about her. She glanced around in a show of concern, then turned to Goodwitch and bowed.

“You know, I almost feel sorry for them,” said Yang, offhandedly.

“Don’t,” said Blake, not taking her eyes off the action.

Yang flapped a hand dismissively. “I said _almost._ ”

 

* * *

 

The docks had been an industrial wasteland. The rest of the island was somehow _worse._

Emerald stared enviously at Mercury’s boot-covered prosthetics and Cinder’s Semblance-enhanced tempered glass slippers. Between the service buildings and vehicles left to rust, the pools of dripping green waste under the poorly-maintained pipes, and the actual godsdamned _poison ivy,_ it was an increasingly bad day to be wearing her usual open-toed sandals.

Once they were inside the base, however, all new complications presented themselves.

“Do you think he’s capable of opening a test chamber,” Emerald groused, picking her way across what seemed like miles of broken glass, “without shattering every single one?”

“The doctor is a busy man,” said Cinder. “He can’t be expected to remember _everything._ ”

Her stride was confident, assured – and, frustratingly, completely silent. It was as if the glass itself was afraid to crunch under her feet. Mercury, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to pulverize every single shard he could see, going out of his way to step on every large pile in his path.

“Do you have to do that the entire way down?”

“Come on, Em, you know the answer to that already.” Mercury took a huge leap into another fluid-stained cluster, splattering the hallway with bits of glitter and green. “I gotta be me.”

Emerald sighed. “Fine, knock yourself out. If you catch some weird disease, I’m not cleaning up after you.”

Cinder reached the main doors at the end of the hallway and threw them open, interrupting whatever snide remark Mercury was about to say next. “Doctor, so good of you to invite us into your home. You’ve no idea how wonderful it is to see you again.”

The laboratory was about what Emerald had expected. Papers strewn about the desks, empty food containers left haphazardly on surfaces, and most of the lights in the room were off. Not broken – they were clearly in working condition, it was just as if the act of turning them on would take too much attention away from whatever current project was at hand.

The project itself was clearly displayed in the center of the lab – a half-disassembled Atlesian Knight, propped up on a rack like some sort of macabre metallic parody of a torture victim. Its remaining limbs were stripped of armor plating, leaving the endoskeletal supports and frayed bits of Dust-coated wiring unravelled like the stuffing of a disemboweled teddy bear.

The doctor himself was hunched over what used to be the Knight’s head. “Used to be” was the operative word; most of it was dumped unceremoniously on the floor. The entire top half of the cranium had been removed, exposing rows of circuitry. Cables connected these circuits to a central console, the buttons and displays providing most of the room’s illumination.

The doctor looked up at the intrusion. “What? Oh, it’s you. Didn’t you just leave?”

“That was weeks ago, Doctor,” said Cinder, allowing a hint of amusement to curl around her voice like a stray wisp of smoke. “Weeks since your last check-in, as well. We were worried about you.”

She spread her arms wide. “Allow me to introduce my faithful companions. Emerald, Mercury, this is Doctor Merlot. You’ll be seeing more of him in the future.”

Merlot stood up straight as he got a closer look at the pair of them. One of his eyes was mechanical, bolted straight into his skull. Unlike other prosthetics Emerald had seen, this one didn’t even make the attempt to appear human: a round red camera lens, which irised in and out as he focused. His right arm was similarly mechanical, the metal finished in black with red running lights.

He was tall, dressed in a simple white jumpsuit emblazoned with his former corporate logo – Emerald got the impression that he had a closet full of them, since there were no shareholders or reporters to impress on an otherwise deserted island. The fact that it was wrinkled and stained with the synthetic lifeblood of the flayed Atlesian mech only supported the theory further; it was a match to his messy shock of white hair.

“It’s a… pleasure to meet you,” said Emerald, with only a minor hesitation.

“‘sup, Doc?” Mercury added.

“Mercury has been making great use of the upgrades you provided to his legs,” Cinder prompted. “Haven’t you?”

“What? Oh, yeah, love them. Didn’t take nearly as long to break in as my last ones.”

“Yes, yes,” said Merlot, waving them off and turning back to his work on the mech. “Lovely to meet you, heard great things. Why are you here?”

“Your check-in, Doctor,” Cinder repeated patiently. “You were supposed to give an update on your research.”

Merlot reached up and pushed a clump of hair out of his eyes. It stayed where he pushed it, glistening slightly with the motor grease transferred from his hand. “Oh, right. I’m sorry, my dear, I’ll send that along shortly. I was distracted by this!”

He gestured towards the console. A light in the center was blinking slowly, matching a pulse of blue light from the open cranium of the Atlesian Knight.

Cinder stepped closer to peer at the console. “Is that the master signal for the fleet?”

“Indeed it is,” Merlot crowed. “Indeed it is. It took some doing, but I’ve finally penetrated the encephalic barrier Atlas installs in all of their mechs. With this, you’ll be able to tap into any local network you wish, provided you have the signal strength and the processing power to maintain it.”

“It’s active right now,” Mercury pointed out. “What are you testing it on?”

“Nothing specifically,” said Merlot, circling back around to the mech. “I have a few shielded relay stations on the mainland, I was bouncing the signal between those. Don’t worry,” he added, noting Mercury’s sudden scowl, “it’s encrypted and filtered through so much garbage that even if someone does pick it up, it’ll just show up as a bit of static.”

He reached over and unplugged the cables from the mech. It slumped in its restraints. Over on the console, the pulsing light faded.

“The real benefit is over here, let me show you…”

As Merlot led them through the rest of his lab, demonstrating all of his recent accomplishments, Emerald kept glancing back at the Atlas mech. Something else was probably going on there, but as long as it didn’t endanger the mission, it probably wasn’t important.

 

* * *

 

Penny stopped in the middle of the street. There had been a signal bouncing around for the past twenty minutes. It drove her out of her hotel room and into downtown Vale to investigate it. It seemed to have stopped, though.

Curious. Now that the signal was gone, she had no further desire to continue her way through the streets. It had to be a malfunction of some kind.

Protocol said that any major malfunction needed to be reported to the General, but with tensions being what they were, a report like that might make him scrub the mission altogether. This was supposed to be a field test, regardless of how much fun Penny was having on it.

She made a note to run a diagnostic when she made it back to the hotel. If it was a major malfunction, she’d report it, but there was no need to bother the General right away.

 

* * *

**Beacon Student Registry  
** _Vytal Festival Registration_

**Name:** Yang Xiao-Long  
 **Age:** 17  
 **Class:** First-year  
 **Team:** RWBY

**Huntsman-Track Qualifications:**

Signal Academy – Graduate  
Beacon Initiation – White Knight

**Registered Weapon:** Custom-built Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets – _Designation: Ember Celica_

**Semblance Classification:** Absorption – Reversal

Yang Xiao Long can use her Aura to store kinetic energy from incoming attacks. The build-up of this energy is passively channelled to her muscles, increasing her physical strength so long as her Aura remains intact. The stored energy slowly, allowing her to reset gradually over time.

She can also choose to activate her Semblance to release the entirety of this stored energy all at once, dramatically increasing her strength and speed for a short period of time. This action drains her Aura quickly, sacrificing defense for sheer power.

Her Semblance causes her Aura to glow when it builds, focusing most strongly in her hair. When releasing the power actively, it bleeds out through her Aura, giving the appearance of crackling flames.

**Combat Specialization:** Melee Specialist (primary), Defender (secondary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter titles: Two Scoops of Pain, A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicinal Beatdown, What's a Fortnite?


End file.
